


Paper Skin

by Nightbirdsong



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: And kind of comedy, Fantasy, M/M, i dont even know anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 14:39:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6614542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightbirdsong/pseuds/Nightbirdsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baekhyun has a messy life. Typical for a young boy, typical for the perfect sob story. But he isn't getting himself into trouble all the time like people would think he does. No, he just spends all his free time hiding in the bookstore of Mister Oh, who seems to be constanly reading and who knows everything about everyone. <br/>It's nothing special, this little bookstore. Until Baekhyun gets sucked right into a book and ends up stuck with a broody knight called Sehun and his Cheshire friend Chanyeol. Well, this world is surely out of the biggest cliche Baekhyun has ever seen. Faeries are not to trust and mermaids are pretty. And mages are weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written just for fun and it's not the best I've ever typed out, really. But it had to be done because of reasons and I didn't want to upload it in the first place to be very fucking honest. But here I am, throwing a little bit Sebaek love out there! (Seems like Baek is my muse *sighs*)  
> The story has no real storyline, mind you. It was written as a joke to begin with and I'm not totally satisfied with it because some parts seem utterly rushed and sloppy, but I don't think I will ever edit it to something better. Kelly liked it and that's enough for me <3  
> Enjoy <3

Baekhyun doesn't know how he ends up in the bookstore with his back pressed against the glass door, chest heaving up and down while he tries to catch his breath. He doesn't know how he got himself into trouble like this, a couple of angry boys chasing after him for almost an hour until he had ducked into the entrance of said bookstore, dripping wet with his thin jacket clinging to his bare arms.  
The owner of the bookstore gives him a sour look from behind the counter and Baekhyun smiles at him in a small apology, raking a hand through his wet hair.  
“You should stop messing with them, Baekhyun.”, Mister Oh says and pushes his small golden glasses back on his nose, licking the tips of two of his fingers so he can flip a page of the worn book he is reading. Mister Oh is always reading, Baekhyun thinks to himself while he pushes himself off of the door and carefully maneuvers around a stack of dime novels to walk over to where the old man is sitting on a high stool.  
He drops his backpack to the floor by the counter and hops up to sit next to the cash register that seems like it belongs into another time period. Mister Oh just gives him another look and Baekhyun smiles again, innocently this time.  
“I am not messing with them.”, he says and the old man sighs while he wedges a finger between the pages of his book and shuts it, turning to look at Baekhyun over the top of his glasses, one of his thin white eyebrows raised.  
“Is that so?”, he asks and Baekhyun only smiles a little harder. “Because- and please correct me if I am wrong- didn't you throw a can at Donghaes head the other day? Is that not messing with them?”  
Baekhyun has long stopped wondering how Mister Oh knows what is going on outside the store everyday and how he knows that Baekhyun is hiding in here from various people. He still remembers the first time it happened- around a year ago- when he first stumbled into the store, a bloody lip and a black eye that was pretty impressive if someone would ask Baekhyun. Mister Oh didn't ask him who he was, just looked at him like he always does know and went back to reading, sighing deeply when the boy had stumbled into the same stack of dime novels he rounds every time he comes in here.  
Baekhyun picked all the books back up by himself, stacking them neatly and even sorting them by color and Mister Oh was highly amused. And somehow Baekhyun finds himself coming here so often, he sometimes feels like he is living here.  
The owner of “Now and Then” never questions him, just gives him something to do and leaves him be until Baekhyun leaves again to go home. Baekhyun never wants to go home though.  
He doesn't, because there is nothing waiting for him at him, just a drunk father and a crying mother who works three jobs to keep them alive while his older brother does nothing but waste his days and become like their father. Baekhyun wants something more, he just wants it without calculus and his family.  
Mister Oh knows all that because Baekhyun tends to talk while he is working between the shelves. There are no customers at all and still Baekhyun is sorting books every single time he comes in here, unpacking them, flipping them open and then shut again before placing them in the shelves. He even cleans in here sometimes.  
Mister Oh always tells him he doesn't need to because he doesn't pay him, but Baekhyun always waves him off and keeps doing what ever he is doing. The old man lets him stay in the store without buying anything ever, he can do something for it.  
“You know”, Mister Oh starts then and flips his book back open when Baekhyun doesn't answer, dripping onto the counter and picking at the hole in his jeans that is right above his knee with his fingernails. “My son was a little bit like you. Always doing something stupid and then saying he didn't do anything.”  
“Huh.”, Baekhyun makes and slips from the counter. He doesn't like talking about Mister Ohs son because the old man always gets so sad when they talk about him and so he skirts around the topic when ever he can. So he clears his throat and says: “I see. I'll be... over there, okay?”  
The owner of the shop just nods at him, not even looking away from his book and Baekhyun rolls his eyes, rounding towers of books that are scattered all over the place and slips into the row of shelves he was working between the other day.  
“There is nothing there!”, he suddenly says and pops his head around the corner of the shelf. “Did you sort the books away already?”  
“I did.”, Mister Oh just says and waves him off. “Go read something, Baekhyun. You are annoying me. I really want to know if Sam manages to get back with Frodo.”  
And just like that their conversation is over, Baekhyun knows that. Mister Oh is living in his books most of the time.  
“Words hold more power than anything.”, he once said to Baekhyun and the boy had rolled his eyes like he always does when Mister Oh is talking about his books like they are alive. “Treat them carefully, boy. There are souls living inside those pages.”  
He shrugs his shoulders at the others words, retreating back into the shelves and then walks up the small metal staircase that leads up to the oldest part of the store. Baekhyun has been up here a couple of times, looking for old copies of those comics Mister Oh says he keeps somewhere inside the store, but he never found them. But all the books downstairs are boring or he knows them already and he hasn't looked for anything to read up here ever. The books here are so old everything smells like faded ink and yellow paper, a thin layer of dust coating everything that is stacked neatly into the high display cabinets.  
He has to find something interesting up here and if it would be something in Latin with creepy pictures he can look at. Yes, he is that bored and yes he doesn't want to go home that badly.  
Something catches his eye after half an hour of shifting through the rows of books, fingers brushing against the backs of leather bound books and then he stops because the leather under his fingertips changes to something else entirely. For a moment it feels like wood.  
He turns his head to look at the book he is still touching, pushing his fingers into the spaces between leather and wood and pulls it from its place. It isn't thick, maybe just the combined space when Baekhyun puts both his hands over each other, the edges a little bit scuffed. But the binding feels smooth when he turns it between his fingers and looks at the cover. There is nothing written on it, not even on the back but there are small black trees at the bottom of the front and if Baekhyun moves it from side to side a little, it seems as if they are moving.  
He stands there for a couple of minutes, looking down at the book in his hands and then flips if open somewhere, squinting down at the small black letters that seem like they were written with a typewriter. So this book isn't as old as the other ones, he thinks while he takes it back to the window and slumps down in the armchair he has claimed as his own a while ago.  
Not that Mister Oh minds, because he never comes up here.  
Baekhyun pulls his legs up onto the faded green upholstery and tugs his feet under his ass, leaning to the side and placing the book on his knees to flip it open again. He skims over the first few pages, reading introductions and names of countries and it seems like he found some kind of fantasy novel between all the historical crap up here.  
And he reads for hours, chewing on his bottom lip while he follows the story of the Knight that has been sent out to stop the brotherhood of the Crows, reads about the hero fight against the order on his own with his three companions and then- he dies.  
“What the fuck.”, Baekhyun mutters under his breath and reads the sentence again.  
“And with his last dying breath, the Knight swore to always watch over his unborn son so the brotherhood could never resurrect the Nothing.”  
The paragraph is over there and Baekhyun furrows his eyebrows while staring down at the letters, bottom lip again caught between his teeth. It is only the legend that is starting off the story and Baekhyun gives a small shrug while he makes to flip the page, but suddenly there is a hand stopping him from turning the page and he startles, nearly dropping the book when he stares up at Mister Oh, who is staring down at him in return. “This.”, the old man says. “Is something that is not meant for the public eye, boy.”  
He takes the book from Baekhyuns hands and it thuds closed between the mans fingers, Baekhyun making a distressed sound in the back of his throat because now he lost his page.  
“Why not?”, he whines when Mister Oh is carrying the book back to its place in the cabinet and slides the glass door closed, not even looking at Baekhyun.  
“It's mine.”, he simply says and Baekhyun scrunches up his nose.  
“Did you write it?”  
“More or less.”, Mister Oh answers while walking down the staircase again and Baekhyun is hot on his heels, tugging on the hem of his shirt to get it back down over his hips.  
“But it is good!”, Baekhyun insists, sounding a little childish. “Why can't I read it?”  
“Because.”, Mister Oh says, sounding final. “I don't want you to. You never value the souls that are living inside my books, Baekhyun. And this is a powerful book.”  
A powerful book, Baekhyun repeats in his head and scoffs, but he doesn't say anything else.  
“Go home.”, the old man urges him and Baekhyun sighs, slipping into his still wet jacket and picking up his backpack from the ground.  
“Good night, Mister Oh.”, he mutters from the door and looks over his shoulder and for the first time Mister Oh is looking at him without judgment in his eyes. He even seems a little bit curious. Baekhyun doesn't know what to think of that look and so he just smiles and Mister Oh replies:  
“Good night, Baekhyun.”


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Warning! Plot holes, typos galore and my crappy writing!

 

He sneaks back up to fetch the book from its place a couple of days later when Mister Oh isn't there but left him in the store alone, locking the door behind him with a stern face and the command “to not mess anything up while he is gone”.  
Baekhyun grins at him from behind the counter like a good boy and then waits for the lock to click into the place, watching Mister Oh place his hat on his white hair and walk away through the big window of the shop.  
He is back in his armchair in less than five minutes, shifting through pages rapidly until he has found the point he stopped reading, sighing softly while he starts the new chapter, one fingers tracing along the tiny writing while he does so.  
And he doesn't even know that he is reading out loud, lips moving while he mouths the words his fingers trace over the yellow paper, a little bit of ink clinging to his fingertips.  
“There was a place called the Fairy Groce that was hidden behind the never ending sea of trees of the great forest, a place pure and simple in its beauty. One might wonder why it was called the Fairy Grove, but once you have seen it, you simply know. It was not because there were fairies dancing in the rays of moonlight, no. It is because the trees were singing if you listened close enough. If your heart was pure enough, you could hear their songs in the night and when the sun was rising over the tops of the trees of the surrounding forest. It was a holy place for all those who knew what magic was, a holy place not only because here the Knight died in his last battle, but because he was buried here, in the middle of the small circle of birch trees, their glowing white bark resembling his armor. It was a peaceful place, silent in its wonder, if not for the scrunching steps of heavy boots over the ground, crushing leafs and twigs in their wake. It was a peaceful place, if not for the silent muttered curses the young man hisses from between his teeth, pushing his way towards the grove and stumbling from the thicket of thorns and fern. He doesn't wear his armor that day, thank the gods or else he would have needed days to get here, he thought to himself while brushing away stray little leafs that cling to his black hair. It was silent here, so silent that the young man could hear his own heartbeat and every breath he took while he walked over to the middle of the grove where the gravestone was hidden under a thick layer of moss. It took him almost three hours to get here and it would take him even longer to get this stone out from the ground, but he didn't have a choice. He needed that stone. And so he knelt on the ground, both hands digging into the soft earth surrounding the gravestone and started his work.”  
Somewhere in the store something topples over and Baekhyun jumps at the sound, head whipping up, but there is no other sound and there are no steps and the bell above the door doesn't chime. Mister Oh isn't back yet, he tells himself with a small relieved sigh. And so he keeps reading, but suddenly it doesn't feel like it anymore. The further he reads, the more he follows the work of this young man whose name he doesn't know yet... it feels like he is watching him. Baekhyun feels like he is looking through a window, watching the man dig out the gravestone, cursing under his breath while he does so. He reads about how the grove seems to sigh in protest when the grave is finally open and the man pulls out the urn containing the Knights ashes. He even makes a small sound when the man simply opens the urn and pours the ash into the hole under the gravestone, his eyes widening because how can he do that? Those are the ashes of a hero!  
“He paused when his fingers were already brushing over the soft ash in the small hole, his shoulders drawing up to his neck and he turned his head to look over his shoulder. There is no one there, but didn't he just hear someone speak? Maybe it was his imagination, maybe just the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Finally his fingers closed around something warm and solid inside of the ash, a faint glow casting shadows over his face when he pulled a glowing orb from the grave, a wide grin on his face when he weighted in his palm. He made it. This was the first of five. He was going to complete this task. And so he lifted the orb up a little bit, letting the rays of moonlight catch against its blue surface and started muttering the summoning he had been taught his entire life.”  
Baekhyun pauses to listen for any sounds in the store again, his heart suddenly beating loud even though he has no clue why. There is no one there, he tells himself and rolls his eyes, focusing back on the book. But there is a chill running down his spine and he shifts a little bit in his seat. He starts reading again, frowning a little while he does so.  
Something is wrong.  
He feels cold, there is a faint breeze ghosting over his naked arms and next to him the cover of a book flaps with the invisible wind. Maybe Mister Oh left a window open up here to get a little bit of fresh air into the store...?  
Baekhyun looks back down to the book and his eyes land on the summon the man is speaking, but he doesn't know the language, only knows one single word. Because he has heard it a couple of times already. Mister Oh really wrote that book, didn't he?  
“Sehun.”, he says out loud and another shiver runs down his spine. Mister Oh once told him that his sons name was Sehun. But the boy died in an accident, he recalls. Did Mister Oh write this story before that, or after it?  
“Sehun.”, he repeats, a little louder because he likes the sound of it. It's a nice name.  
And then something strange happens. The breeze suddenly gets a little bit stronger and Baekhyun shudders violently, drawing his shoulders up to his shoulders and he wants to let go of the book so he can pull his shirt down again where it has ridden up over his hip bone. But he can't let go. He can't move his fingers, the book feeling as if it is glued to his skin and he makes a strange noise. He tries again but his hands won't move. His arms do though, the book even lifting from his knees while his hands are stuck to the pages and the wooden binding.  
The wood feels hot where it is pressed into Baekhyuns palms and he hisses, trying to shake the damned thing from his hands.  
“What the fuck is this?”, he mutters and places his feet on the floor, pressing one hand down on the paper to pull with the other and still nothing is moving. His arm trembles with the force of the pull, his shoulder jerking up and yet his hand is still stuck.  
“What the hell?”, Baekhyun repeats and then his thumb is moving, brushing over the summoning the man in the book is speaking and the ink is smearing with the movement as if Baekhyun poured water over it. The words are swimming into each other and then vanish before his very eyes and Baekhyun feels like this is a bad joke.  
It has to be!  
Books don't stick to peoples hands and words don't vanish from paper.  
“Oh, come on!”, he says a little louder, completely desperate. “This is not funny!”  
And the second he closes his mouth, it happens again, his fingers are moving and he can't stop them, staring down at his own hands with his mouth wide open in horror, eyes as wide as saucers. Where his skin is brushing the paper the words fade away, the black of the ink seeping into his skin and Baekhyun doesn't even realize he got up from the chair until he makes a step forward.  
His hip collides with the banister of the staircase and the momentum is enough to tip him forward and then he falls, head first and he already sees himself crashing into the shelves downstairs and breaking his neck, so he closes his eyes.  
Mister Oh will be so angry at him when he comes back and finds Baekhyun dead in the store because he didn't listen and touched the book again and now he will end up with a broken neck. Those books hold power, Baekhyun. You don't even understand what I am trying to tell you, do you, boy?  
He feels himself fall and he is screaming and then he is crashing against something hard and the burning of the wood on his hands finally stops. Something is shattering with a deafening crack and Baekhyun is sure that it is his neck or his spine or maybe that glass cabinet downstairs, but he doesn't feel any pain. Aside from the horrible throbbing in his head and his chest where he feels a shoulder digging into his flesh.  
Wait.  
Wait, what?  
“By the love of all the gods, get off of me!”, someone is screeching and Baekhyun opens his eyes only to look down at... grass? There is soft green grass under his face and it is in his mouth and quickly closes it, pushing himself up and off the writhing body under his own and- the book is gone. The book is gone and his hands are free but...  
“What the fuck?!”, he breathes out when he drops back onto his ass, staring at another boy he apparently landed on. And Baekhyun has no idea what the hell just happened.

 

Some people say that the capital city of Ivory wasn't built in one day. Those who know about magic beg to differ. Well, Ivory really wasn't built in one day- as seen in the chronicles of Luhan the Architect- but in two. The city is nothing but a giant tower and now it is burning.  
The smoke curling from the city into the sky looks like a tower itself and the faint glow of the flames that are licking up from the base of the tower towards the top look like a sunrise.  
“I told you it was a bad idea.”, Chanyeol says beside him and Sehun only grunts. It was a bad idea and still here they are, staring down at the capital city of the steppe that is burning like a dry twig in a bonfire. Chanyeol shifts and Sehun shoots him a glance.  
“It was a really, really bad idea.”, Chanyeol repeats and flicks his tail at Sehuns leg in a sign to get going.  
“It was.”, Sehun states and reaches into his pocket to pull out the red orb he carries around since sunset, showing it to Chanyeol with a grin that almost matches Chanyeols in its width. “But it was worth it.”  
Chanyeol rolls his eyes and turns around, his giant paws making no sound on the normally scrunching pebble stone street. His black and blue fur reflects the light of the fire and makes him look like a strange shadow and Sehun follows him away from the city.  
“You know that it's not the one we are looking for, right?”, Chanyeol purrs and Sehun grunts again, rolling his eyes so profusely his vision swims for a moment.  
“But it is a powerful stone.”, Sehun reminds him, tossing the red orb into the air and catching it again before Chanyeol makes a strange rumbling sound. “It will help me.”  
“If you say so.”, the cat chuckles and then they vanish into the night while Ivory burns behind them. They travel for a few days just like that, side by side while Sehun plays with the stone and Chanyeol is still nagging him for setting an entire town on fire.  
It wasn't Sehuns fault though, really, it wasn't.  
He just happened to take the stone from its place and trip over his own two feet because he thought it was necessary to play with the stone like a little child, knocking over a chandelier and setting the curtains of the magicians hall on fire.  
It's not his fault that Ivory isn't made of ivory but wood, right?  
When they reach the forest and Sehun makes his way into the trees while Chanyeol goes for a hunt, he doesn't know that he ends up with a lap full of a strange boy that simply fell from the sky just before sunrise. He doesn't know that this boy happens to land right on top of him, knocking the air from his lungs and bruising Sehuns jaw with a horribly bony shoulder and he doesn't know that there is a horrible crashing sound that comes from between their bodies, something hot and wet spreading over the layers of his black linen tunic.  
But he knows that the stone is shattered from the impact and what was secured inside of it is now slowly drying on his skin and the boys stomach- and oh by the gods, this is not supposed to happen!  
“What have you done?!”, he screeches, his voice snapping while he pushes the boy from his lap and gets up from the ground, pulling the wet tunic away from his body with a grimace. “Oh! No, no, no, no, no, no! This is not- what am I going to do?!”  
“Where the fuck am I?”, the boy asks loudly behind him and the trees around them give a scandalized sigh because they are talking so loud at such a holy place. Stupid talking trees.  
Can't they shut up for just a second, Sehun thinks while he whips around to face the boy and glare down at him.  
“Where do you think you are?”, Sehun snaps at him and the boy stares up at him with wide eyes, falling onto his ass on the ground and nearly slipping into the hole under the gravestone.  
“How the fuck am I supposed to know that you asshole?”, he retorts, but his voice is slightly shaking.  
The boys language is slightly strange to Sehun even though he knows most of the words, but he never heard someone outside of the docks of Dragon Bay curse like that.  
“This is the Fairy Grove.”, he simply says then, gesturing around them like the other boy is stupid- which he probably is, judging that he fell from the sky and Sehun thinks that maybe this is one of the apprentices of the Invisible Academy in the Frost. He has to be.  
A spell gone wrong and boom you fall through a hole and land on strangers. Easy as that.  
“Ha. Ha.”, the petite brunette suddenly makes and Sehun narrows his eyes at him, still wiping a hand over his wet stomach, frowning so deep he knows there will be wrinkles in the form of his grimace if he keeps it up.  
“Very funny, really.”, the smaller adds and gets to his feet, stabbing a finger into his chest. “The Fairy Grove is something out of a book, excuse you. And if this would really be the Fairy Grove out of Mister Ohs book, then you would be Sehun.”  
“I am Sehun.”, he states the fact and watches the smaller boy pale until his face is as white as a sheet of paper. He still has his finger on Sehuns chest and he looks down at it and then bac k up again at Sehuns face, taking a step backwards while swaying like he is drunk.  
“This is such a bad joke.”, he wheezes and rakes a hand through his brown hair while Sehun watches him with curiosity. Maybe not an apprentice after all. “This has to be! Come on, I can't be inside of a book! I know what happened! I fell down the stairs and hit my head and I'm at the hospital and-”  
The boy keeps rambling while Sehun looks at him, his face morphing into a bemused expression and suddenly Chanyeol is by his side, brushing Sehuns leg while he sits down close to his friend, nudging him with a furry shoulder.  
“Who's that?”, he asks and Sehun shrugs nonchalantly. “And what's up with him?”  
“I have no idea.”, Sehun answers him and then the boy in front of them whips around and goes even paler, if that is even possible. He points a finger at Chanyeol, his whole body shaking and practically screams: “Is that a talking cat?!”  
“I am not a cat.”, Chanyeol tuts, lifting his head a little bit while he grins so wide all of his razor sharp teeth are showing. “I am a Shadow Cheshire!”  
“Fuck me sideways.”, he boy breathes out and then he faints.

“He smells funny.”, Chanyeol says while he circles the boy on the ground, nudging him with his nose. “Is he a human? He smells like a fruit basket. Can I eat him? He wears strange clothes, Sehun. Who is he? Where did he come from? Again, can I eat him?”  
“Chanyeol!”, Sehun eventually barks and throws the bone of his chicken leg into the fire between them, giving his companion a suffering look. “Shut up!”  
“But why?”, Chanyeol whines and trots over to him to sit right in front of him, sniffing at his stomach and Sehun pushes at his massive head with both his hands to get him away, but Chanyeol is roughly the size of a pony and it's pretty hard to get him off of Sehun if the Cheshire really wants to stay where he is.  
“You shattered the stone.”, he concludes and looks back at the still unconscious boy. “Or he shattered the stone. Have you looked at his hands? There is ink all over them. Can I eat him?”  
Sehun slaps both his hands down on Chanyeols head and the cat yelps like a dog, hopping away from the human boy as if he had been burned, fur bristling. “You can not eat him!”, Sehun growls and if Chanyeol had eyebrows, he would raise them right now. Sehun really isn't the type to care about anybody but himself and maybe his friend the cat, so why stop Chanyeol from eating the stranger? Not that the Cheshire is keen on eating a human, but he is hungry and desperate times call for desperate messures.  
“But who is he?”  
“Why do you think I have the answer to that?”, Sehun groans and looks over to where the boy is resting on his own bedroll, the flimsy woolen blanket pulled over his shoulders so only his head is visible.  
“Because you are a little know it all.”, Chanyeol says easily while curling into a ball next to the fire, big green eyes never leaving the boy either and his black tongue flicking out over his muzzle as if he is already imagining how the boy might taste. “And you won't let me eat him?”  
“Shut up.”, Sehun grumbles and throws a stick after the cat.

Baekhyun might not know about a lot of things, but he knows that people normally don't get their hands stuck to books who start glowing, ink doesn't simply vanish from pages and people don't fall over the banister of stairs and don't break at least a single bone. He knows that there are no such things as magic and talking cats and he knows that people don't open graves for stones that shatter and make your clothes wet. He also knows that people don't simply fall into books and end up in magical realms unless you are watching a cliché movie.  
So, he concludes, this has to be a giant joke. Maybe he really is in the hospital and he will die because he smashed his head open on the hardwood floors of Mister Ohs shop. There is absolutely now way that he is inside the book! Because if he were, he wouldn't be wearing his normal clothes, right? People always wake up in different worlds and are wearing the clothes the people there wear, right? And he would wake up probably handcuffed and cold and definitely not under a blanket that smells nice- like sandalwood and something spicy and warm and secure- and there wouldn't be someone shaking his shoulder gently.  
He would get poked and dragged into a dungeon, not looking up into a ridiculously handsome face- Sehun, mind you, really is handsome, Baekhyun has to admit that- and he wouldn't have bolted from the blanket and made a run for it and then crashed into a wall.  
An invisible wall, excuse you.  
Baekhyun is still rubbing his nose, sitting cross legged by the fire where the boy who claims to be Sehun is stirring a pot, the cat peeking at Baekhyun from behind the boys back. If you could call it a cat, honestly. This... thing is gigantic- Baekhyun has never seen a horse in real life but this animals has to be as big as a cat- and it has bright green eyes that are watching his every move, black and blue striped tail swishing over the floor behind it.  
“I told you.”, Sehun says from the fire, not even looking at him. “You can't run away.”  
“This is ridiculous.”, Baekhyun mutters, rubbing at his nose. “I don't understand what is going on! Can you please just tell me where I am so I can go home?”  
Sehun sighs as if he is dealing with a child and places the spoon on the ground next to the fire, looking at Baekhyun with dark eyes and furrowed eyebrows. “You are in the Midlands of Alraun, just outside of the Evergreen Forest and you fell from the sky, how am I supposed to tell you the way to your home?”  
“I fell from the sky, sure.”, Baekhyun rolls his eyes and gets up again. “I am going home, have a nice day.”  
“You can try!”, the cat calls after him and Baekhyun hisses at it.  
Sehun sighs again and goes back to stirring his pot and Baekhyun walks away until he is crashing into the invisible wall- again. His whole body collides with it, like he ran into a glass door and he yelps in pain when his knees get crushed against it this time, thankfully not his nose again. What ever it might be.

“So let me get this straight.”, Baekhyun says and Sehun grits his teeth because he is close to strangling him, his fingers already twitching on his thighs while he waits for the food to be cooked. “I am in a country called Alraun and you are Sehun, the hero of the book I was reading in Mister Ohs shop and this is your pet named Chanyeol who happens to be a cat.”  
“Shadow Cheshire.”, Chanyeol cuts in, but Baekhyun ignores him and keeps talking.  
“And the stone you got from the Knights grave was a bottle with a binding potion and now I can't walk away from you further than seven feet?”  
“Five.”, Chanyeol corrects briskly and Baekhyun flips him the bird which gets him a funny look from the cat.  
“And let me guess, you need this stone to save the world from an evil overlord that is trying to destroy everything good and pure and so on and so on?”, Baekhyun continues and Sehun gives him such a strange look that Baekhyun thinks he might have lost his mind like Chanyeol said earlier. “Chanyeol probably is your guardian or something and can turn into a human.”  
“Uh.”, Sehun makes eloquently. “No.”  
“Uh no, or no?”, Baekhyun asks and glares at him from across the fire and Sehun feels like he wants to roll his eyes. But he doesn't.  
“Listen.”, he says then and leans forward slightly to point a finger at Baekhyun. “You fell on top of me and broke the bottle. Now we are stuck together and I have to find another binding potion because I need it to bind the great Nothing. So. I don't know what book you're talking about and can you please shut up? Your voice is annoying.”  
“Your face is annoying!”, Baekhyun snaps and crosses his arms over his chest.  
“He is kind of funny.”, Chanyeol pipes in again and Sehun kicks a leg out, but he misses the cat who just grins at him so wide all his teeth are showing. He does that a lot, Baekhyun thinks while he shudders. They are arguing on the other side of the fire and he doesn't understand a single word, his whole head swimming and starting to hurt, so Baekhyun starts rubbing his temples desperately.  
“Wait, wait, wait.”, he says after a few minutes and both Sehun and Chanyeol turn to look at him, one of them clearly amused and the other looking ready to throw the pot with soup at Baekhyuns head. “So what if this is true- which it is not, sorry- what are we going to do? I need to go home, right? How will you send me back to... uhm... my place?”  
The two people on the other side of the fire share a look and then Sehun grimaces, his nose scrunching up and his eyes narrowing while he whispers: “Jongin?”  
“Jongin.”, Chanyeol nods and flicks his tail. “He will know what to do.”  
“Who is Jongin?”, Baekhyun asks and Sehun pushes a bowl of soup into his hands while he passes him on his way to his backpack that is laying a couple of feet away from them, only to stop dead in his tracks and make a strangled sound. Chanyeol pauses where he is busy licking at his palm and his head lifts quickly, both ears turning forwards and Baekhyun watches for a moment how Sehun performs a strange little dance on his left before Chanyeol starts wheezing in laughter.  
“This is priceless!”, he gasps and hops around the fireplace to sit next to Baekhyun and nudge him with a massive shoulder. “Look at that, fruit basket!”  
“What?”, Baekhyun asks, completely confused while Sehun walks from left to right and then back again, cursing under his breath while he does so. “What is he doing?”  
“Five feet!”, Chanyeol gloats and then falls to his side to roll around on Baekhyuns- Sehuns- bedroll, still laughing. “By the Nightgod, I have to tell the boys back home about this!”  
“You won't!”, Sehun says, completely scandalized and turns around with an expression that is more pained than anything else. “Get me the backpack, you idiot.”  
“No.”, Chanyeol simply says and starts pushing at Baekhyuns side and the boy is way too tired to recoil from the creatures touch. He ends up slipping off the bedroll and Sehun makes a quick step forward and plucks the backpack from the ground, sending Chanyeol a glare that has Baekhyun gulping.  
“I hate you.”, the black haired boy hisses and Chanyeol just shrugs.  
“You guys are nuts.”, Baekhyun decides then and starts eating because his stomach is grumbling and he feels cold since he is only wearing a flimsy t-shirt and the wind here is horribly cold against his skin. “I should record you with my phone and make a movie out of it back home, really. Maybe I will become youtube famous or something.”  
“What ever you say, fruit basket!”, Chanyeol says next to him and blinks big green eyes at him.

Baekhyun learns that Alraun isn't that big.  
It was once part of a bigger continent, but got separated due to a spell that Baekhyun only half understands when Sehun is telling him about it. He is too distracted because he is sitting on a horse for the first time in his entire life, wedged between the front of the saddle and Sehun, who simply manhandled him onto the horse despite his protests.  
He tried to run away a couple times more, only to end up with a bloody nose and bruised knees and Chanyeol sitting on top of him, threatening to handcuff him for real. Or break his legs, or bite his legs off. Baekhyun won't argue with a giant black cat, really. He still thinks he is hallucinating though.  
So back to the topic Alraun- an island as large as maybe Britain is in Baekhyun own world- this sounds so stupid he has to snort at the thought, because Sehun has no idea what Britain is and he only said: “Sure, if you say so.” when Baekhyun asked him about the size of Alraun. But Sehun gave him miles as a measure and Baekhyun knows about miles. He isn't stupid.  
He might be hallucinating and he might be delusional or he might be dead, but he isn't stupid and Alraun is as big as Britain. He thinks. He guesses. He assumes.  
“And you are a knight.”, Baekhyun says matter of factly and Sehun nods behind him. Baekhyun can feel the movement run all the way though his body.  
“From the Brotherhood of Crows.”  
“Sure.”, Baekhyun drawls. “That's not cliché at all. Why not the Brotherhood of panties and bras? Or daisies and rainbows? Are there unicorns in this world?”  
“What is he babbling about again?”, Chanyeol asks from the ground where he is trotting along next to the horse, dashing off now and then to chase after a rabbit.  
“I have no idea.”, Sehun tells the Cheshire and Baekhyun makes a distressed sound.  
“No, seriously.”, he says then and Sehun groans. “Can this world get any more cliché? Next you tell me there are dragons living on giant treasures and there are dwarfs.”  
Sehun doesn't answer right away and Baekhyun almost thinks that there really aren't dragons and dwarfs and he hasn't lost his mind just yet. But then Sehun answers: “The dragons don't even like gold, they hate the smell of it. And dwarfs only live on the big continent. They don't like it here. By the way, unicorns are just a myth.”  
“A myth.”, Baekhyun wheezes desperately and buries his face in his hands. “I wanna die. This is so fucking stupid. Shouldn't have taken those headache pills Baekbom gave me. I bet they were LSD or some shit!”  
“He is babbling again.”, Chanyeol decides next to them and is gone again.  
Baekhyun didn't really put up a fight to come with the strange pair of friends since he was practically stuck to them now, right? In more sense than one, because slowly it dawned on him that this really wasn't his hometown anymore, not even close.  
Well, he knows that there are festivals around town where people dress in medieval clothes and do shows of any sort, but there is no way to explain singing trees that are growing at the side of the street they are riding on, one of them making a rather offended noise when Chanyeol tells him that he is off tune with the other trees and Sehun snickers behind Baekhyun. And this world seems strange over all in itself, but Baekhyun can't complain anymore. He is a little bit scared what he got himself into and when they stop for the night and Sehun once more lets him use his bedroll, Baekhyun thinks about Mister Oh.  
This is what Mister Oh wrote, right? All this, starting from the second moon that is rising above the horizon behind a line of mountain tops to the man that is sitting once more on the other side of the fire and is staring into the flames with a brooding expression.  
Baekhyun wants to ask so many questions, but as soon as he opens his mouth, Sehuns eyes land on him and he snaps his lips shut again, shrugging his shoulders once before he curls into himself on the bedroll and pulls the woolen blanket over his shoulder while he turns his back towards Sehun.

Baekhyun is still half convinced that he is dreaming or dead when he wakes up with the first light of the sun, the world around him hazy with white fog and dew that makes his clothes wet and his skin damp and Baekhyun shivers. He stretches a bit with aching muscles, rolling onto his back on the ground and then sitting up.  
They stopped a little bit away from the street, using the back of a slope as a shield from the wind that seems to be constantly there in the steppes Sehun mentioned they are crossing right now and Baekhyun rubs his eyes with his knuckles for a while, yawning and complaining silently about how cold he feels. As soon as his vision isn't blurry anymore, he shifts on the bedroll and looks at the fire that is nothing more but glimmering coals but the warmth is still there and Baekhyun stretches out his hands to warm them up a little bit.  
“Good morning.”, a raspy voice says and Baekhyun flinches, eyes darting to where Sehun is leaning against his backpack with his arms crossed over his chest and his chin tipped down. But the other boy is still sleeping and Baekhyun clicks his tongue in confusion because there is no one there beside him and Sehun and- then the fog next to the fire moves a little bit and Baekhyun sees bright green eyes flash. Chanyeol is moving and Baekhyun sees that the color of his fur changed, the stripes no longer black and blue but white and gray, but then the cat shakes his massive body and the black and blue is back.  
“Good morning.”, Baekhyun mutters and turns back to the fire while Chanyeol yawns and stretches his giant body, claws digging into the earth while a shiver runs over the cats spine and makes his fur bristling to the tip of his tail.  
“So!”, Chanyeol starts after a moment of awkward silence and Baekhyun is rubbing his arms before pulling the blanket back around himself. It really gets cold outside at night.  
“So?”, Baekhyun repeats and Chanyeol starts cleaning his fur from the small drops of dew that cling to him.  
“Are you a mage?”, the cat asks then and Baekhyun shakes his head. He can't even complain anymore. Sure, in this world there are mages, what did he expect? There is probably a wise council of mages somewhere in a tower, debating over the fate of the world, all of them with white bears and pointy hats and wands and-  
“If you are not a mage, how did you manage to fall into a book?”, Chanyeol keeps asking and Baekhyun shrugs.  
“I thought you don't believe me.”, he mutters tiredly and rolls his shoulders because they hurt from laying on the ground for yet another night.  
“I never said I don't believe you.”, Chanyeol snickers and cocks his head to the side in a move that could have been cute, if not for the set of deadly teeth he shows again. “Sehun doesn't, though.”  
With that the cat slinks away into the fog and is gone until Sehun wakes up.  
There is no phone signal.  
Absolutely no phone signal, not even a single bar and his battery is dying too. The device is cold in his hands where he holds it clutched to his chest like a new born baby and Sehun is eyeing him strangely while rummaging around in his backpack.  
“What is this?”, it all but bursts out of the taller boy and Baekhyun nearly drops his phone with a yelp, joggling it for a good minute before catching it and sighing in relief when he presses it back against his chest.  
“It's my phone.”, Baekhyun answers with a shrug and hold the device out so Sehun can look at the screen. “But I can't get a signal, so it is practically useless.”  
“Huh.”, Sehun makes and makes as if to take it from him and Baekhyun snatches it away with a small sound in the back of his throat.  
“Uh, uh.”, he says with a shake of his head. “I have pretty private sms on there, you know? And I don't want you going through all my pictures.”  
“What?”, Sehun only makes and Baekhyun sighs deeply. “Nevermind.”  
They remain silent while Sehun proceeds to dig around in his bag, muttering under his breath while shooting Baekhyun weird glances from the corners of his eyes. Eventually- just when Baekhyun is about to snap at him to cut it out because this is getting annoying- he straightesn and tosses a shirt over at him, black and made of linen with wooden buttons across the sternum and it hits Baekhyun square in the face.  
“Here.”, the knight says and gets up from his kneeling position. “It will keep you warmer than the thing you are wearing.”  
Baekhyun looks from the shirt in his lap to Sehun and back again, lifting one of his eyebrows slowly. Yes, this will definitely keeping him warmer than his t-shirt, but it's a little bit big for him and where is he supposed to change? Sehun keeps looking at him as if he is expecting Baekhyun to fly into action right away, but the smaller boy only makes a twirling motion with his fingers and tuts: “Turn around, please!”  
Sehun looks at him with a strange face again, shrugging in defeat when Baekhyun only stares at him for a long moment and then he turns, again muttering under his breath.  
Baekhyun sticks his tongue out at him when he hears the other say “he's behaving like a girl” and slips out of his shirt, tossing it down on the bedroll next to him and then slips into the one Sehun gave him. It really is a little big on him, but it is warm and the fabric feels nice and again Baekhyun is enveloped in that smell he noticed earlier. Sandalwood with something spicy, but there is something else to it too. It smells like Mister Oh, the faintest trace of ink and paper and that lavender soap the old man is using all the time.  
For a moment Baekhyun looks down at the shirt and at his hands that are still stained with ink, the black clinging to his skin insistingly and he rubs his palms together for a moment, as if trying to get it away. He wonders if Mister Oh is alright and if he found the book Baekhyun surely dropped over the banister- or if Mister Oh is with him in the hospital while Baekhyun is dying. He pulls the wooden buttons through the holes one by one slowly, tracing them with his fingers gently and then clears his throat in a sign for Sehun to turn around again.  
The other rolls his eyes as soon as he does so, walking over to him and crouching so he is almost on eye level with Baekhyun, fixing his collar and then tightening the strings that make the sleeves of the shirt a little more fitted around his wrists so they won't slip over his hands.  
“There you go.”, he mutters then and gets up again. “You really have no clue about anything, hm? Come on, we should get going.”  
And Baekhyun looks down at his phone one final time, stuffing it back into his jeans and then gets up to help Sehun pack their stuff, silently wondering why Sehuns eyes really look like Mister Ohs.

Baekhyun decides that he hates horses.  
He hates them, because he needed ten minutes to even get into the saddle before Sehun easily swings himself up behind him, taking the reigns and the horse makes such a lurch forward that Baekhyun nearly slips out of the saddle. He really doesn't like horses.  
He is jostled around in his seat while they ride up over the cobblestone street, gets hit in the face by coarse horse hair when the wind is blowing extra hard as if to mock Baekhyun who is still shivering from the cold even though it really is better with Sehuns tunic that is made of a way thicker fabric than his own shirt. He hates horses because his legs ache from sitting in this position for hours and hours, his throat hurts from not talking and his back is sore.  
But Sehun insists on riding through the day again, ensuring him that they will be at this Jongins home by the time night falls. Baekhyun really doesn't know what he is expecting, honestly. Maybe some small talk, but it is mostly him talking to fill the silence. He is talking about the group of boys that always pick fights with him, skirting carefully around the topic of his parents and he even talks about the bookstore, just because he misses Mister Oh, telling Sehun who only grunts behind him about the new movie he really wanted to go watch but couldn't because he was short on money and eventually Sehun asks: “Do you like the sound of your own voice of do you just like talking? I understand only the half of what you are talking about, you know?”  
“I know.”, Baekhyun then sighs and falls silent. He starts playing with his phone with stiff fingers, watches the battery fall to 50% before he shuts it off and puts it back into his pocket with a small frown.  
“I'm bored.”, he whines after a while and Sehun groans before Baekhyun adds: “No, really, I am bored! What do you normally do on a journey like this, hm? You're a knight on a holy mission, you are on the road a lot, right? So what do you do while you ride?”  
“I am silent.”, Sehun stresses and Baekhyun rolls his eyes at him.  
“Come on.”, he says and wiggles around in the saddle a little bit- ignoring Sehuns silent hiss for him to stay still before he falls off the horse- and patting Sehuns knees on either side of him. “There has to be something! Just riding is really boring!”  
But Sehun stays silent and Baekhyun eventually does to, mouth shut and pouting while the sun is slowly setting, casting a faint orange glow over them all with the dying light of day. At a parting of the street Sehun steers the horse towards the path where the cobblestones end and Baekhyun bites down on his tongue to stop himself from asking because the other street would lead them to a city, right? It's a broad street and this is just a dirty path and it's getting darker and darker by the minute, but Sehun clicks his tongue a couple times to get the horse going just a tad bit faster.  
“Oh.”, Chanyeol suddenly says. “I just remembered that you still owe Jongin ten silverlings, Sehun. Do you think he still remembers?”  
“That was two years ago.”, Sehun mutters and Baekhyun tilts his head to look down at the Cheshire Cat that has been awfully silent the whole day. The cat doesn't seem too excited to go see the mage and somehow this makes Baekhyun even more nervous.  
“He won't remember because his brain is like a sponge. It has holes.”, Sehun adds and Chanyeol rolls his eyes in such a dramatic way that Baekhyun snorts with laughter.  
But the laughter dies in his throat as soon as he sees where they are going, the path making a small curve and it's almost completely dark now and all Baekhyun can see is the entrance of a cave that looks like the mouth of some giant vicious beast with teeth and the glow of fire in the back of its throat. For a moment Baekhyun thinks that this might be a dragon, but then he sees a shadow moving along the walls of the cave and he hears a loud voice singing some strange melody that has the hairs on his arms and in his neck raising in horror.  
“What is this?”, he whispers and Chanyeol replies: “It's Jongins home. Lovely, isn't it? Ah!”  
The cat is interrupted by something exploding in the depths of the cave and Sehun shakes his head with a small frown, but he stops the horse and slips out of the saddle, already walking away from Baekhyun when the magical bond stops him from going any farther.  
He groans like he always does when he is annoyed with Baekhyun and turns, only to find the other boy still sitting in the saddle with his eyes trained on the cave and his face pale.  
“What are you waiting for?”, he asks loudly and Baekhyun swallows audibly, shaking his head furiously. “I am not going inside.”  
Oh, Baekhyun might be a lot of things, but he isn't stupid and he knows what happens to small pretty boys like him when they wander off into caves like this. He has seen Arielle, okay?  
And in caves like this one, there are witches and trolls and mages that eat children for breakfast and want eyes and voices as payment.  
“Don't be an idiot.”, Sehun sighs and walks back over to him, simply manhandling him out of the saddle and throwing Baekhyun over his shoulder.  
“Hey!”, the smaller screeches and starts pounding his fists down on Sehuns back while the other walks over to the entrance of the cave. “Let me go! Let- me- go! Hey you asshole are you even listening?! I said let me go! I don't want to! You can go inside by yourself, you're a big boy!”  
Sehun only sighs again and shakes his head, giving Baekhyuns behind a small slap to shut him up and the motion has Baekhyuns face flaming while Chanyeol snickers, skirting around Sehuns feet while Baekhyun starts struggling even more in the taller mans hold, thrashing and kicking and screaming and then the singing in the cave suddenly stops.  
“Uh-oh.”, Chanyeol makes and ducks behind Sehuns legs even though he is so big he is barely hidden.  
“Uh-oh?”, Baekhyun echoes and canes his neck so he can look at the entrance of the cave, only to see a shadow growing bigger and bigger along the walls, the flames of a fire flickering brightly in the depth of that beasts throat and he freezes on Sehuns shoulder, one hand pushed against the others head so he can look over his own shoulder to where the shadow grows bigger and bigger and even bigger and then-  
Someone curses in the cave, something clutters and crashes and then someone is stumbling from inside, arms flailing and hopping on one leg. The figure is wearing long robes that are wrapped around his legs, making him stumble even harder, the long straps of fabric draped along the mans body twisting even more and then he falls in a heap, yelping and Baekhyun can't help but snort.  
“This was planned!”, the man says and his voice is surprisingly young and he comes to his feet with a dazzling smile that has Baekhyun blinking rapidly. He really is young, his skin is slightly tanned and his dark hair is falling smoothly into his face, a little bit disheveled from his fall, but he doesn't seem hurt while he straightens out his robes and waves at them.  
“Hello, Sehun!”  
“Hello, Jongin.”, Sehun mutters and drops Baekhyun to the ground without even giving him the slightest warning. He crashes to the floor with a small noise of pain, kicking his foot out so it hits Sehun right in the shin and the black haired male hisses and takes a step away from him so he is out of Baekhyuns reach.  
“It's been a while.”, Jongin says and gives Sehun a once over and Baekhyun is completely confused. This is Jongin? The mage? But weren't magicians supposed to wear pointy hats and be old and have beards? Aside from the slightly stubble on the others chin there is no beard and there certainly isn't a pointy hat on top of his soft looking hair.  
Sehun shrugs and smiles softly and Baekhyun is stunned into silence for a second.  
“What brings you to my humble home?”, Jongin asks and Sehun gestures down to Baekhyun with a scowl.  
“I need you to get rid of a spell that binds us and then you need to send him home.”, he explains quickly and Jongin lifts an eyebrow, looking a lot more like a mage does in Baekhyuns head when he is rubbing his chin in thought and studies Baekhyuns face before he turns back to look at Sehun.  
“You dropped it, didn't you?”  
“I didn't drop anything!”, Sehun defends himself but strangely enough, there is a blush coloring his cheeks all of a sudden. “He broke it. Can we please go inside it's getting really cold.”  
Jongin lifts his shoulders and hand, pulling a face and says: “The Master won't be- Ha! Chanyeol! I knew I saw your grin! Come here, you!”  
And then Jongin is all but sprinting towards them, shoves Sehun to the side and practically throws himself down on Chanyeol who is not fast enough to get away, making a strangle noise for air when the mage lands on his back and starts cuddling him like a plushie, pressing the side of his face against the top of the cats head, arms around his neck.  
“I see you finally chose your form, huh?”, the mage states happily, pulling at Chanyeols ears with a big that rivals Chanyeols own. “Green suits you, my friend!”  
The scene is bizarre, really. Chanyeol doesn't struggle in the others hold, just goes lax and starts purring furiously, Jongins grin growing even wide while Sehun grumbles something under his breath- “stupid mages and stupid cats and stupid spells”- before he grabs Baekhyuns hand and pulls him to his feet and then inside the cave while the smaller boy is still staring at Jongin and Chanyeol who are curled around each other with the cat sounding like a tractor and the mage cooing softly at him while he scratches the animal behind his ears.  
Baekhyun thought the cave would be stuffy and moist and dark- probably hella scary too- but it is neither of that. The beginning of the cave is just raw stone that is only lit by the fire and light deeper inside, but then it opens to something that looks like a completely ordinary street in one off those commercials Baekhyun sometimes sees on television.  
They are walking along a small path that is neatly bordered with little white stones, leading to a front yard that is perfectly mowed behind a white fence and there is a house standing in the middle of it, soft smoke curling from the chimney and it even has a porch too.  
If not for the bubbling cauldron in the front yard it would look like something straight out of Baekhyuns world and he stops walking so abruptly, Sehun is running straight into the barrier that seems to surround them, stubbing his toe and then cursing colorfully in a language Baekhyun doesn't understand while he himself is staring at the house with his mouth wide open, rubbing his eyes with one hand while the other reaches out blindly for Sehun, waving a couple of times as if he is trying to pat the other on the shoulder.  
“Hey, Sehun!”, he says and the other grunts as a sign that he heard him. “This is like something from my world! Where does Jongin come from? What is this here? Where are we?”  
“You and your questions!”, Sehun snaps, but the bite is almost gone from his voice completely. “It's Jongins house. I don't know where he got it though.”  
“Where he got it?”, Baekhyun echoes dumbfounded and follows Sehun along the path until he is standing on the front porch and toes his shoes off. Sehun looks at him again like he lost his mind, but doesn't comment on whatever strange thing Baekhyun does in his eyes, simply shrugging once and then pushing the door to the house open.  
He expects many things when he steps inside too, but not the complete clusterfuck of trinkets and other stuff littering every surface inside the house, papers and small cauldrons stacked all over the hallway and even inside the living room- because it is a living room, Baekhyun reminds himself- furniture almost not seen under all the blankets and pillows and waterpipes and books that are strewn all around them.  
“Wow.”, he breathes out. “I should take a picture of this.”  
Sehun is kicking at a stack of books on the couch so they fall to the floor and oh god, Mister Oh would be so angry if he would ever see someone do this. The other is already flopping down on the sofa when Baekhyun has the glorious idea to get his phone out of his pocket and slide his thumb over the screen, angling the camera so that he has Sehun on the couch right in the center, the other busy with unlacing his boots and only the faint clearing of Baekhyuns throat his him looking up. The camera clicks and Sehun blinks and then someone is plucking the phone from his hands and Jongin says next to his ear: “That's not very nice, you know? Is this one of those picture machines I heard of? Ohhh look at that, Sehun, you look really handsome!”

As it is, Jongin seems to have two personalities and knows about Baekhyuns world. Or he thinks he does because apparently, there are things falling through a portal and into his house. Baekhyuns head hurts because Jongin keeps talking and talking about, trying to explain to the completely frazzled Baekhyun why he has a stack of X-men comics and how he knows about cellphones. He even has a charger for it, Baekhyun discovers because the other is showing a small wooden box into his hands that is completely filled with wires and phones and even old cameras that still need a roll of film for.  
The thing is, Jongin explains to him, he doesn't know how it works, it just does. Sometimes he hears something shatter or clutter and then there is something new falling from the ceiling or into his front yard and Jongin collects it all in his basement and his attic.  
Baekhyun wanders off when Sehun and Jongin start discussing business with the binding spell, but he is stopped again and he really wants to stomp his feet and curse as loud as he can because he really needs to use the bathroom by now.  
Sehun is always very understanding when Baekhyun has certain needs, turning away from him and rolling his eyes because honestly we are both boys, I have the same parts.  
That might be true, yes, but Baekhyun doesn't like to get watched while he has has to relieve his bladder, thank you very much.  
Sehun is watching him, he knows it, while Baekhyun flips through old Spiderman comics and tries one of the power sockets hidden behind a copper cauldron, only to release a small triumphant yell when his battery really is charging.  
He has no idea how it works, but it does and Jongin is eyeing him curiously, even going so far as to break off mid-sentence to ask Baekhyun a couple of questions, only to get hit over the head by an annoyed Sehun who wants to get rid of this spell already.  
Have you ever wondered where penny goes when you drop it, or where that pen is that you just dropped or where you lost your phone? Jongin says those things get sucked through a vortex between the worlds- there are around seventy more and Baekhyuns head only hurts more when he thinks about it- but that only happens at special places and sometimes those things happen to fall into Jongins lap, literally in this very moment because there is a small whizzing sound and then a wallet falls from the ceiling and lands in Jongins hand right when the mage starts gesturing around to explain to Sehun that there is no way for this spell to be broken unless Baekhyun returns to his own world.  
“This is so fascinating!”, the mage exclaims in glee and flips the wallet open to look through the cards, pulling out an ID card to read it. “Huh. Seems like Do Kyungsoo needs a new wallet, right? He's pretty.”  
“Jongin!”, Sehun says, sounding desperate and snapping his fingers in front of the others face. “Focus! We need to reverse this spell because I need it for the great Nothing, remember?”  
“Oh come on.”, Jongin says, sounding a little whiney and shakes the ID card in front of Sehuns face. “It's been quite a while since I last got a wallet. I just want to-”  
“No!”, Sehun barks and slaps the card from Jongins hand and the mage gives a small whine that sounds like he is about to cry. “I have about a week before the eclipse happens and I have to bind the great nothing on that day or the Master will have my head on a stick for breakfast!”  
Very original, Baekhyun thinks while playing candy crush on his phone.  
An eclipse to bind some demon. Do people never question those kind of things?  
Virgins blood to soothe an angry god, a magical stone that is a flask full of stinking potion to bind a dark being that is supposed to destroy the world and-  
Wait.  
What?  
“Excuse me.”, Baekhyun pipes in from where he is sitting on the floor with his phone between his legs, staring up at Sehun and Jongin with wide eyes. “Did I hear that right?”  
“Did you hear what right?”, Sehun wants to know, quirking a delicate eyebrow at him.  
Jongin looks confused, mouth still open because he was talking when Baekhyun interrupted them. Sehun and Baekhyun have a little staring contest before the brunette questions: “You are the bad guy.”  
“Excuse me?”, Sehun mutters, sounding a little bit offended. “I am what?”  
“You are the bad guy in this story!”, Baekhyun screeches and scrambles to his feet. “This great Nothing you want to bind to you is supposed to give you the power to destroy the world!”  
“No?”, Sehun answers him and he sounds like Baekhyun is the biggest idiot in this universe. “Why would anybody destroy the world? That makes no sense!”  
What makes no sense is that Sehun really seems to be the bad guy here. Of course, Baekhyun thinks, no hero would wear black like that, would always grumble like that. Not in a book at least. But what Baekhyun just heard means nothing but this.  
This ominous Brotherhood of the Crows wants this big Nothing to rule the world, right?  
What else could “we need it to finally fulfill the Masters plan to take over Alraun” mean?!  
“You can't be the bad guy!”, Baekhyun says desperately, stomping his foot for real. “Bad guys are supposed to be ugly! You are not ugly! But have you seen Gollum?!”  
Jongin is snorting behind the back of his hand and this time it's Sehun who looks completely confused, leaning back a little bit while he raises his eyebrows. “Who is Gollum?”  
“Nevermind!”, Baekhyun says exasperatedly and throws his hands into the air. “I need air.”  
With that he turns on his heel and makes a run for it, but the stops just short before he crashes into the barrier.  
“Okay, fuck this!”, he seethes and turns around to point a finger at Sehun and Jongin. “You guys are going to find a fucking way to get rid of this fucking spell and then I want to go home! I just want to go home! I need a shower because I stink, I need to call my mom and I want to apologize to Mister Oh!”  
“See what I am putting up with?”, Sehun turns to Jongin and the mage pulls his lips into a small frown, lifting one shoulder as if he doesn't know if he should answer that or better not. “Fuck you!”, Baekhyun says loudly and throws a book at Sehun head.

Taking a shower is not the problem in Jongins house- not his, the mage stresses a few times. It's his former masters, who got it from his master and so on. He has a nice little bathroom upstairs with hideous green tiles and pipes that squeak in protest when Baekhyun turns the faucet of the shower on. The shower curtain is so old that Baekhyun bets his ass on it that this house got sucked into the other world in the early seventies or some shit, the floral print simply disgusting, but it will do and Jongin even possesses a crate full of bottles where Baekhyun finds shampoo and conditioner and body wash.  
Not the problem, really.  
The problem is the brooding bad guy, that follows Baekhyun all around the house and is forced to come into the bathroom with him because when Baekhyun shut the door into Sehuns face, he couldn't even reach the shower. Begrudgingly he opens the door and lets Sehun in, giving him a stern and angry look and the knight holds up his hands and turns around, but Baekhyun clicks his tongue at him and pushes him so that his face is right in front of a wall and not in front of the mirror- that has seen better days, but hey, Baekhyun won't complain. A mirror is a mirror, toothpaste that has long expired is still toothpaste and a tooth brush is a toothbrush.  
The water isn't exactly hot, but it is running water- only god knows how this works, but hey, Baekhyun is done with asking questions that will only make his head hurt- and it feels nice when he steps under the spray, just warm enough for him to not freeze and be able to relax a little bit.  
“You should take a shower too.”, he tells Sehun loudly, rubbing soap into his skin and scratching his fingernails over the ink splotches that just don't want to go away. “I bet you have smelled better in your life.”  
Sehun grunts- typical- and Baekhyun is sure the other is rolling his eyes like he seems to always do. Really, characters used to have more depth, didn't they? Maybe Baekhyun should tell Mister Oh to rewrite the book and make his bad guy a little bit more interesting than that.  
“I should.”, Sehun then states and Baekhyun hears him moving around. Something moves on the counter next to the sink and then it is silent in the bathroom again.  
“Are you really the bad guy, Sehun?”, Baekhyun asks after a while, hands stilling in his hair where he is spreading shampoo in his chocolate colored strands. “Is there even such a thing as good and evil?”, Sehun retorts after a long moment and Baekhyun hears water running in the sink and then shutting off again. “I don't know why you think I am the bad guy. I just do what I was told to do."  
“Do you never question what you're told to do?”, comes Baekhyuns silent answer, the water raining down on his head suddenly feeling a little bit colder and he doesn't know why. “World domination is never a good thing. There will be hero that will strike you down in the end. The good things always win in books.”  
“You and those book stories again.”, Sehun mutters and Baekhyun almost smiles. “Why do you even care, hm? Jongin is going to find a way to send you home and then that's it.”  
“Yeah.”, Baekhyun whispers and turns his back to the curtain as if the conversation can be ended just like that. “I am glad to get rid of your broody ass and go back to my X-box. No more books for me, thank you very much. I've had enough of fantasy stories.”  
“What ever you say.”

“Are you kidding?”  
“Sadly, not.”, Jongin says from where he is sitting on the floor with Chanyeol pulled across his lap and both hands buried in the Cheshires fur, scratching his long fingers across the cats belly. Chanyeol doesn't seem too happy about it, but he doesn't complain either and he certainly isn't moving and Sehun gives his friend a knowing look. The cat only sniffs and turns his head away from the boy as if he is saying “shut up”.  
Baekhyun is silent next to Sehun, sitting curled up on the couch with his chin resting on his knees and his fingers absentmindedly scratching over the ink on his palms.  
“There has to be a way!”, Sehun repeats for the thousandths time and Jongin grimaces.  
“There is.”, he nods and raises both his eyebrows. “I told you already. You have to get him to the vortex and then push him inside. That's the only way for him to go home and I don't know if it will work since he is already adapting our world.”  
“What is that supposed to mean?”, Baekhyun asks and Jongin points to the set of clothes he wears. It's a light white tunic and a pair of almost too tight leather pants that Jongin found in his own closet and claims he doesn't need anymore because the person they are for is not going to come anyway and now Baekhyun is owner of his own set of clothes including some to change if these get wet or dirty.  
“You are wearing our clothes, eat our food. You are adapting this world and maybe you are becoming a part of it. I don't know. I am no expert for traveling between the worlds, you see.”  
“And here I was, thinking that almighty Jongin could be the solution to my problems!”, Sehun grumbles and Baekhyun kicks him in the ribs. Sehun wheezes but doesn't say anything. Chanyeol raises his head in question at his friends sudden silence and his purring suddenly stops. Sehun is never one to fall silent just like that, especially not when someone kicks him in the side like Baekhyun just did. And yet... the knight is sitting next to the boy and doesn't say a single word. And Chanyeol smirks to himself before letting his head thunk down on Jongins thigh again, ignoring the pained sound the mage makes and starts purring again.

Jongin is completely delighted, clapping his hands in glee when Baekhyun shows him that the couch in the living room can function as a bed and how the coffee maker works. Not that anybody here drinks coffee anyways, but Baekhyun would like a cup when he wakes up, thank you, so he starts the machine and grimaces when he looks at the package of long expired coffee powder that rests on the counter next to it. He knows that Sehun is watching him from the doorway and he turns around to glare at the taller boy, hands on his hips and head angled a little bit to the side and the look seems to snap Sehun out of what ever thoughts he might have had in that moment and he instantly answers the glare with one of his own.  
“What?”, Baekhyun barks and Sehun arches an eyebrow, still leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his broad chest. “Stop looking at me like that.”  
“Like what?”, Sehun retorts promptly and Baekhyun is close to puffing out his cheeks. Sehun makes a small noise that sounds like he is trying to clear his throat and then says: “We have exactly four days to find the other stones, get to the vortex and then get rid of you. So you better not cause me any trouble.”  
Baekhyun stares at him for a long moment and then starts laughing sarcastically, shaking his head a few times while he mutters: “And you really think I will help you destroy the world?”  
“I am not trying to destroy the world.”, Sehun repeats like he has the last hour when ever they tried to talk to each other and Baekhyun nods, simpering: “Yeah, sure, you're not. You just want to summon a demon that will destroy every light in this world, right?”  
“That's not even-”, Sehun starts and then cuts himself off, throwing his hands into the air and moving as if he wants to turn around, before he remembers that he can't. There is as much distance between them as possible and still it feels like they are way too close.  
Sehun is so close to really strangling Baekhyun right now- has been close to strangling him for the past hour, but he can't. The boy is annoying, he is loud and he wastes no second to question every single little thing Sehun does.  
“Why do you need those stones?”  
“Why can't Jongin break the spell and send me home right now?”  
“Why do you even need this demon?”  
“Why is your face like that? You look like you're going to throw up.”

Sehun just stands there in silence while Baekhyun rummages around in the cabinets and drawers of Jongins kitchen, yelping when he finds a glass full of rat tails that he almost drops in disgust. The boy is strange, Sehun knows that, but there is something about him that is strangely familiar too. It might be the ink on his hands, Sehun brushes the thought aside with a scoff and Baekhyun looks at him from over his shoulder, seeming as if he is close to make another comment, but then just shrugs and looks away again.

People lose the strangest things, Baekhyun notices while he packs a bag for himself in Jongins house, Sehun always hot on his heels but sometimes even too stubborn to let Baekhyun walk out of the living room because he wants to sit on the couch.  
People lose wallets, lose whole bags with groceries, lose books and shirts and shoes. (One shoe, to be exact. Not to mention the whole pile of socks that Jongin is too lazy to throw out and you can never have enough socks, right? Well, they never match, but the mage doesn't care it seems and judging from the fact that he wears one neon pink sock and a rainbow striped one when Baekhyun sees him cuddling Chanyeol in the kitchen)  
There is a whole ragbag of shit inside of this house and Baekhyun is sure he could spend hours just looking through stuff, but then he finds something that has his heart stopping for a second. It's a small backpack, faded orange that was once bright, blue stripes down the sides. It is completely hideous, but Baekhyun knows this backpack.  
He opens it with shaking fingers, slumping back onto his butt on the floor and pulls out a small lunch box that is Batman themed, the letters BBH written with Edding on the bottom.  
“This is mine.”, he says when Jongin sends him a questioning look when they leave the house to continue their journey to where ever Sehun is dragging him now, the backpack in Baekhyuns hand just big enough to fit the snacks Baekhyun packed for them earlier and suddenly the look on Jongins face changes. The dreamy expression he always wears disappears, there is no smile on his lips and Baekhyun wants to take a step back. Now he really looks like a mage all of a sudden, serious and his eyes dark and searching. But then the moment fades and Jongin gives him a bright grin and a slap on the back that has him gasping for air and rubbing his shoulder with a small pout.  
“If it's yours, then you should take it home with you!”, the mage says happily and hops down the stairs for a last hug around Chanyeols massive body. The Cheshire seems defeated by now, but Baekhyun knows that he kind of likes the attention, even though he would never admit it.  
When Jongin makes to hug Sehun too, the knight takes a step back and holds out a hand and for a second, Jongin looks hurt, but then he takes the hand and shakes it so violently, Sehuns whole body shakes too.  
Jongin stands at the entrance of his cave and waves at them until they disappear and Baekhyun is almost sad to leave him behind. At least the mage spoke to him without sounding annoyed. Now they ride in silence while Chanyeol is trotting ahead of them, disappearing between the bushes on the side of the way from time to time and Baekhyun wonders, if he will ever see the mage again. Maybe he should have said a more proper goodbye.


	3. Chapter 3

They travel south, away from the Midlands and the world changes around them with each mile that is passing under the hooves of Sehuns black Stallion – another wonderful cliché. It changes from the green hills and fields of the steppe into long planes of grass and distant forests that are black on the horizon. They pass a few villages, but Sehun doesn't stop for even a single moment, not even when Baekhyun starts complaining that he is hungry and his ass hurts from sitting in the saddle for so long. Sehun ignores him most of the time, not even making a single noise and Baekhyun gives up on talking after a while. So he munches on a apple he pulls from his little backpack, grumbling under his breath that people take themselves way too serious and Sehun still doesn't react.  
But traveling like this is boring and Baekhyun gets antsy very fast- something that Mister Oh had complained about several times in the past- and soon his mouth is running again.  
And since Sehun refuses to talk to him, he talks to Chanyeol.  
The cat is actually pretty nice, a little bit weird maybe, but for Chanyeol Baekhyun is just as weird so they're even. They talk about this and that, about Baekhyuns world, about the “not talking cats” there and Chanyeol reminds him again, that technically he isn't a cat.  
“Well, but you are.”, Baekhyun insists and Chanyeol makes a sound in protest.  
Chanyeol talks to him and tells him stories and he even tells him stories about Sehun.  
Well, Baekhyun would prefer it if Sehun would tell him all this himself, because it creeps him out just a little that the other is so silent behind him, not even making a single sound.  
And so Baekhyun learns that Sehun is the youngest apprentice the Brotherhood has, that he was raised by the monks there, that he is an excellent swordsman, but he lacks in magic.  
“I don't lack in magic.”, Sehun suddenly pipes in when Chanyeol is telling Baekhyun how Sehun failed each and every test for magic back at the castle where they live and Baekhyun is so surprised to hear the others voice that he actually really jumps in the saddle, nearly slipping off the side and only Sehuns arm is stopping him from the fall.  
“You do.”, Chanyeol says matter-of-factly and Sehun scowls.  
“I have magic, they just don't know how I am supposed to use it.”, the black haired boy says and with that the topic seems to be over. Baekhyun is too tired to press and be nosy right now.  
He falls asleep in the saddle shortly after that and he wakes up when someone pulls a blanket over his body and a hand strokes over his hair.  
“I had the weirdest dream, mom.”, he mutters and the hand on his forehead stills and then disappears altogether. And then he falls asleep again.  
Sehun looks down at him in that moment, eyebrows furrowed and teeth buried deep into his bottom lip and for once he ignores Chanyeols remark behind him when the Cheshire tells him that he is getting attached. They are, Sehun thinks with a scoff. They are attached already, he can't grow attached. And he barely knows the boy that is once again taking up all the space on the only bedroll Sehun has and he knows that he will have kinks in his back again because he will sleep on the ground. He doesn't even have a blanket or a cloak to keep him warm, but he doesn't really care.  
He is used to it.  
“I need him.”, is what he says out loud and Chanyeol purrs behind him, a low hum mixing with the rumbling in the cats chest. He is still kneeling beside Baekhyun, turning the boys hand so that his palm is facing Sehun and the he lets one of his fingers run over the inky black right under his index finger before Chanyeol speaks again and he pulls his hand away.  
“Why do you need him, Sehun?”  
“The keystone can only be activated with a pure heart.”, he mutters and scoots away from the sleeping boy on his knees, leaning back against his backpack like he always does and folds his arms over his chest while staring into the flames of the fire in the middle of their make shift camp. “I don't have a pure heart.”  
Chanyeol narrows his eyes, but doesn't say anything and Sehun is thankful for that.  
“Then maybe you shouldn't treat him like that.”, Chanyeol mutters after a few minutes, curled up into a giant black ball by the fire, eyes drooping. “If you become his friend, then maybe he will help you. If you don't talk to him, what reason does he have to even get you the stone?”  
Sehun can't deny that Chanyeol is right. No matter how hard he tries.

 

Something is wrong.  
Something is so entirely wrong that Baekhyun can't even put his finger on it.  
It started to get weird the moment he woke up, feeling like he got hit over the head and instantly handed breakfast by Sehun, who seemed like he was waiting for him to wake up. He is allowed to drink from Sehuns water bottle, the other boy even asks him if he wants to freshen up in the nearby stream and Baekhyun just raises his eyebrows at him in that moment.  
It is when he is brushing his teeth when it starts to get even weirder, Sehun eyeing him from the side and Baekhyun eventually turning his head to look at him with his eyebrows raised and a muttered: “What?”  
“I just wondered what exactly you are doing.”, comes the almost cheery answer and Baekhyun almost chokes on his toothpaste. He sputters for a moment, blinking and then spitting out the white foam into the small crystal clear stream of water by his knees.  
“I am brushing my teeth.”  
“What for?”, Sehun wants to know with a small tilt of his head and Baekhyun blinks even more rapidly, his body leaning back on his own accord.  
“Did you get abducted by aliens last night or something?”, he whispers and Sehun looks at him like that again.  
He tilts his head to the other side and Baekhyun can help but to notice how cute he looks like that, this ever gloomy expression gone from his face and for a moment he wonders how the other would look if he would be smiling.  
“Uh.”, he makes and offers Sehun the toothbrush after rinsing it in the stream. It's not the most sanitary thing to do, but if Sehun really wants to know what it is for, who is Baekhyun to decline? Maybe the other just had a few bad days...? He won't waste the opportunity to talk to him though, so no questioning on his side.  
“You use it to clean your teeth and mouth so your breath doesn't stink like a dead rats ass.”  
“Oh.”, Sehun makes, but he doesn't move, is just staring at the toothbrush like it would bite him. “I see. Well. Clean your teeth then, we need to get going! Four days, remember?”  
“Yes, sir.”, Baekhyun mock-salutes when Sehun gets up and brushes grass from his black leather pants. He doesn't offer Baekhyun a hand to get up- that would be asking a little bit too much, if one would ask Baekhyun- but he waits until the smaller is done with washing his face and running wet fingers through his brown hair to smooth it down and then they walk back to where Chanyeol is prancing around the horse, singing.  
“What is he doing?”, Baekhyun asks when they come a little closer and Chanyeols singing gets obnoxiously loud.  
“We are close to his hometown.”, Sehun explains lowly, tucking the saddle a little bit tighter around the horses belly. Chanyeol is hopping in a circle a couple of feet away from them, still singing and swishing his tail from one side to the other happily.  
“I see.”, Baekhyun smiles and Chanyeol sends him a wink when he belts out:  
“Oh maiden mine with the fur of moonlight rays and golden eyes!”  
Sehun snorts and leans his head against the horses side, closing his eyes for a moment and sighs: “He will never stop singing now. Oh dear.”  
“I like it.”, Baekhyun tells Sehun briskly and grabs the handle of the saddle, already placing a foot in the stirrup to get onto the horse, but he is way too small and way too weak to pull himself up and he fails after hopping up and down on one foot before Sehun rolls his eyes, grabs him by the waist and simply lifts him up. Baekhyun yelps and blushes, ducking his head as soon as he sits in the saddle properly and mumbles a thank you that Sehun is just brushing aside with a shrug. The knight gets into the saddle a lot easier, nudging Baekhyuns feet away from the stirrups so he can steer their horse towards the street.  
They follow Chanyeols loud singing for almost an hour. And somewhere along the way, Baekhyun finds himself singing along to the ever repeating song. Sehun still doesn't talk, but Baekhyun hears him snickering silently when Chanyeols voice booms even louder.

 

“Woah.”, Baekhyun makes when the street makes a turn around a hill and a massive forest comes into view, each tree top twisted around itself into little cupolas that are swaying softly in the breeze of an ending summer. “What is this place?”  
“Chanyeols hometown.”, Sehun tells him with a shrug. “Timerglow forest. It's where the Shadow Cheshires come from. But they don't live here anymore.”  
Baekhyun pauses and turns in the saddle a little to look at Sehun when they cross the line of trees and the sun is replaced by shadows and little dots of light, Chanyeol still singing in front of them, but his voice grows fainter and fainter while he darts into the trees and back to the street.  
“Really?”, Baekhyun asks and Sehun meets his eyes. They are so close that Baekhyun can feel Sehuns breath on his face, warm and a little wet, the others tongue flicking out for just a second to lick over his lips to wet them before he speaks.  
“Chanyeol was one of the last Cheshires born here.”, he says lowly and Baekhyun turns back around to let his eyes wander over the thick trees that are bordering the street.  
They are so high that Baekhyun has to crane his neck back to even see the tops and even then they are so far up above his head that he can't really see their ends. There are staircases carved into the wood, curling around the trunks and ending at doors around ten feet high and Baekhyun even spots balconies high above their heads.  
“This is such a beautiful place.”, he breathes out and Sehun behind him nods a couple of times. “Why do they not live here anymore?”  
The question has Sehun hesitating for a moment and then he shrugs softly, taking a breath.  
“It's a long story.”, he says then and Baekhyun turns again, giving the other a bright grin.  
“We have a long way ahead of us, right?”  
Sehun narrows his eyes and his eyebrows come together for a moment, but then the strange things continue and his face smooths out again and he starts: “Before I was born, this was a normal town. You know... ever since the island got separated from the main continent the Shadow Cheshire folk lived here. They are a... very peaceful species. But things happened and after the Knight killed their king, they didn't want to live here anymore. It's really not that complicated.”  
“I thought it was a long story?”, Baekhyun pipes up and Sehun purses his lips.  
“I gave you a shorter version.”  
“But-”, Baekhyun starts and then they both notice that Chanyeols singing stopped entirely. The Cheshire is nowhere to be seen, not between the trees and not on the street before them, but Sehun doesn't seem to worry while he simply keeps riding and Baekhyun looks around to see if he can spot Chanyeol somewhere.  
“Don't worry about him.”, Sehun says then when the majority of the tree houses are behind them. “He is probably visiting his fathers grave.”  
It's then that Baekhyun decides that he doesn't want to stop bugging Sehun about the story of the Shadow Cheshire king and the Knight and after half an hour of prodding and poking Sehuns thigh, the knight slaps his hip to stop him and snaps: “Fine! Fine, I will tell you, but could you please stop poking me?”  
Baekhyun knows half into the story, that he doesn't like that one.  
While Sehun is talking, the beautiful Timberglow forest becomes a graveyard around him and it isn't that beautiful anymore. Sehun tells him that long before the island was made, the Shadow Cheshires were the magical beings that were the most admired. They were wise, they were kind and they were peaceful. They were guiders along the way of destiny, their abilities to read the stars and tell the future known all over the land. After Alraun was made, the Cheshires were still the most admired folk, he says and Baekhyun nods along to his words.  
They were never one to start wars, or fight alongside anyone. They were on their own side and it was good like that. But then the great Nothing rose in the South and the land was threatened because the Darkness had no Master to guide and control it and so the Knight was sent out by the human king to stop it. He came to the Timberglow and asked the Cheshires for guidance and a prophecy and the king himself read the stars for him. But the Knight was just a human, a man with a wife that was expecting a child and when the Cheshire king told him that one of his own sons would one day bring the Knights son to his true destiny- the end through the great Nothing, the end of their bloodline and a new beginning for this world- the Knight did the wrong thing. He slaughtered the entire royal family, each and every one of them. All the seven princes died that night, their mother and father not able to protect them from the Knights fury.  
Baekhyun shudders in his seat, pulling his shoulders up as soon as Sehun stops talking and then the boy behind him whispers: “You say the Knight was a hero. I say, he was nothing but a murderer. What did he do for this land? Nothing, Baekhyun. He killed the Cheshire king and the entire folk is now without a home. He even killed my father, the Master says.”  
“But the book-”  
“Books tell the story of those who write them.”, Sehun interrupts him, but he doesn't sound angry. He sounds defeated and Baekhyun falls silent, his mouth closing around words that are on the tip of his tongue. “It depends on which side you stand to see who is good and who is not. The Knight might have saved this land, might have saved thousandths of people. But he left a trail of blood in his wake.”

 

Chanyeol is still gone when the sun is setting, the faintest orange settling over the land when Sehun is steering his stallion off the road and towards a small path that is hidden between bushes of brambles that are growing along the way. It's still warm, but Sehun wants to set up the fire as soon as they can and for the first time since they met, Baekhyun helps him father wood. There isn't much and the fire ends up small and not big enough to cook dinner for them, but Baekhyun stays silent while he gnaws on his piece of bread and stares at the piece of cheese that is balanced on his knee. He sits cross legged on the bedroll, Sehun a little closer beside him than the nights before and they even share the far ends of the bedroll right now.  
“When will he come back?”, Baekhyun asks and looks around as if he hopes to spot the cat somewhere in the bushes around them. Sehun hums and pulls up one shoulder, too focused on slicing his apple in tiny little pieces to even look at the other boy.  
“Chanyeol comes back when he feels like it.”, he just says then, biting into an apple piece and then licks his fingers clean. “It's always like that with him.”  
They fall silent again, but it's not unpleasant and when Baekhyun groans and stretches his back as good as he can, Sehun cocks his head to the side and reaches over, grasping one of his shoulders and turns him so that his back is facing the taller.  
“What are you doing?”, Baekhyun asks silently and Sehun clicks his tongue while he presses his fingers against the knotty muscles in Baekhyuns shoulders and the brunette gives a sharp noise of pain.  
“Your posture is bad.”, Sehun chides him without any bite in his voice, fingers working over the cramping muscles and easing them into relaxation. “No wonder your back hurts.”  
“Well.”, Baekhyun retorts right away. “I am not used to riding a horse all day, sorry. I hardly ever ride my bike and normally I take the bus.”  
This is the point where Sehun normally answers with a “What ever you say” but this time he asks: “What is a bus?  
How do you explain what a bus is to someone who has never even seen a car in his entire life? Baekhyun pauses, opens his mouth and then closes it again, his brain racing for the right words and then he says: “It's like a carriage without horses... a big one.”  
“If the carriage has no horses, how does it move?”, comes the next answer, Sehuns fingers slipping further down Baekhyuns back and massaging the small of his back, the pain slowly subsiding and Baekhyun sighs- both in relief and in thought.  
“It moves with an engine. It's really hard to explain.”  
“So it's magic?”  
“No.”, Baekhyun shakes his head and looks at Sehun over his shoulder. “We don't have magic in my world, you know? It's technology.”  
“Hm.”, Sehun makes and then falls silent for a moment, hands never stopping to work over Baekhyuns muscles. And then he mutters: “Your world sounds strange to me.”  
“And your world is a living, breathing cliché.”, Baekhyun snickers and Sehun rolls his eyes.  
After that, when Sehun thinks that Baekhyuns muscles are relaxed enough and he tells him to hold his back a little bit straighter when they continue their journey in the morning, they fall silent again. They sit side by side, knees brushing a little bit- or rather Baekhyuns knee brushing against Sehuns thigh- and looking at the fire in front of them, he suddenly feels like he doesn't need to talk. But he does nevertheless.  
“My mother probably misses me.”, he whispers and Sehun jerks next to him. “She doesn't know where I am and I didn't come home from school... Do you think she looked for me?”  
It's not like Sehun would know, but the other glances at him quickly and then says:   
“Every mother would miss their child. I am sure she is looking for you, Baekhyun.”  
“What about your mother?”, Baekhyun asks silently, head dropping forward a little bit while he studies the lines of ink on his palms where they swim into each other and form strange pictures like he is looking at a Rorschach-test. Little clouds, a small butterfly maybe?  
“My mother doesn't care about me.”, Sehun answers him softly, his own fingers drumming a beat against his thigh while he bobs his foot where he has his ankles crossed. “She gave me away when I was nothing more but an infant. How do you think I ended up with the Brotherhood?”  
“Oh.”, Baekhyun makes and Sehun chuckles.  
“Don't worry about it.”, he says and pats Baekhyuns shoulder. “I had a pretty good life with the monks. They took good care of us orphans. They paid enough money for us after all. You should sleep. We will get going early tomorrow.”  
What is this world, Baekhyun asks himself while he curls himself into a small ball under the woolen blanket again, back facing the fire so Sehun won't see that he has his eyes open. Clumsy mages, talking cats and bad guys that don't seem to be bad guys.  
Mothers who are selling their children and heroes that are not heroes.

 

He wakes up because his palms are burning like he presses them into the smoldering coals of the fire behind him. Baekhyun makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat, sitting up so quick the world makes a dangerous tilt, his vision swimming and then he is staring down at his hands where the ink is slowly moving on- no, under- his skin. It is forming words rapidly, like Baekhyun is watching a typewriter work and he can only watch.  
What have you done?  
He rubs his knuckles over his eyes, thinking that he is still asleep and probably just dreaming and looks at his palms again, but the words are there and he can't rub them away.  
Baekhyun, what have you done?  
“What the fucking hell...”, he mutters and glances over to where Sehun is laying on his side, one arm under his head and the other at a strange angle around his own torso and the words on his palm sting like someone stabbed him with a needle.  
Answer me, boy! I told you not to touch the book!  
“Mister Oh?”, Baekhyun breathes out and the words sting just a little bit more. “What-”  
Why didn't you listen to me?!  
“Mister Oh, I don't understand what is going on!”, Baekhyun whispers frantically and brings his palms to his mouth as if Mister Oh could hear him better and he can lower his voice until he is sure that Sehun won't wake up.  
You are inside the book now, boy. I told you not to touch it for a reason.  
“I know I am inside the book, old man!”, Baekhyun retorts, sounding a little bit angry. “Tell me how to get out of here! It's not like I want to be here!”  
You are changing the story already, stupid boy. Go to the south and find the vortex and get home. We will fix things as soon as you are out of there.  
“Well, I am on my way to the vortex.”, Baekhyun whispers and the words move under his skin like angry animals. “Sehun is going there too.”  
Stay away from Sehun! Stay away from him, do you understand me, Baekhyun? Stay away from Sehun and go on your own. You need to come home.  
“I can't, Mister Oh.”, Baekhyun sighs and looks over to Sehun again, his face softening for a moment without him even realizing. “There is this binding spell and...”  
Stupid. I said get home. He is not who you think he is, boy. Get home and we will fix things how they are supposed to be. You need to remember that-  
“Magic is a funny thing, isn't it?”, a low voice grumbles into his ear and Baekhyun nearly screams, his whole body jerking away from the warm fur that is pressed against his cheek and the words on his palms vanish, blurring back into small clouds and faint stains.  
Chanyeol is sitting next to him, grin wide as ever, but his eyes are dark and careful.  
“And the old geezer was always a really funny guy.”, the cat adds almost casually, but Baekhyun doesn't like the glint in his eyes. For the first time since he met the strange pair of friends, he really feels like he is not surrounded by good people.  
“What old geezer?”, Baekhyun grits out through a locked up throat and Chanyeol tilts his head to the side with an even wider grin, his teeth glimmering in the darkness of their small camp.  
“You know exactly what I am talking about.”, he purrs and rounds on Baekhyun, his tail curling around the boys neck before he hops over to Sehun and lays down behind the black haired knight, backs pressed together. Baekhyun can't sleep a single minute anymore.

 

He is so tired that he almost slips off the horse a couple of times and Sehuns arms are the only thing that keep him upright in the saddle while they ride. His mood is turning sour over the hours, his back hurting again and his stomach rumbling even though he eats the rest of his apples he packed at Jongins house.  
Baekhyun only grumbles sometimes when Sehun nudges him if he is asleep and tells him to keep his eyes open because he can't hold him when he really falls from the horse and eventually Sehun is the one talking instead of Baekhyun. It seems like he wants to keep him awake and Baekhyun just wishes he would be silent. His voice is grating on Baekhyuns nerves, makes him grit his teeth and after an hour he snaps: “Shut up, will you?! I don't give a flying fuck about that lovely little village you were born in, just around the corner, okay? Just shut up and let me sleep, fucking dammit!”  
Sehun snaps his mouth shut with an audible pop and Baekhyun feels him stiffening behind him, but he doesn't see the way Sehun pulls his shoulders up to his neck with an expression on his face that is almost hurt.  
“I will try and find out if there are any free rooms in the tavern.”, Chanyeol chirrups from the ground and scurries away, his black form vanishing on the street after just a few minutes until he is nothing more but a black spot in the distance that is soon gone.  
Baekhyun feels the weight of the silence between them like stones on his shoulders and he clears his throat a couple of times before he asks: “So what are we doing here? I thought you were looking for these stones?”  
“I am.”, is Sehuns short answer and Baekhyun grimaces because he knows that Sehun can't see his face. The other doesn't say anything else after that and Baekhyun is left to his own thoughts again. He knows that Sehun is supposedly the villain in this story, out on a journey to find the great Nothing and control it to take over Alraun and so on and so on, but he doesn't seem like it.  
Baekhyun can't see a single evil thing in the way Sehun helps him down from the horse when they reach the village even though he knows that the other is till angry at him because he snapped earlier. He can't see anything evil in the way he guides Baekhyun into the tavern and gives him a quick look before ordering a decent and hot meal for the both of them, or in the way he pours more milk into Baekhyuns wooden cup than into his own. He doesn't miss the way Sehun raises his eyebrows while measuring the food that is brought to the tiny table they are sitting at, cramped into the far corner of the tavern by the fireplace, shoving so much meat and potatoes onto Baekhyuns plate until he thinks he will burst if he has to eat all this.  
But he won't say anything about it because Sehun is already mad and it's not Baekhyuns money that goes from one hand to the other while the other pays for their meal. They still don't talk while they eat, but Baekhyun sees the way the corners of Sehuns mouth lift up softly when Baekhyun takes the first bite of his meat and releases a quiet moan at the rich taste and before he knows it his whole plate is empty and Sehun looks at him utterly bemused. He just shrugs with a sheepish grin and Sehun rolls his eyes, but the motion has something oddly fond to it.  
“Drink your milk.”, Sehun says softly and pushes his cup towards Baekhyun and Baekhyun sticks his tongue out at him before taking it and emptying it with one large gulp. He sets the cup down right in front of Sehun with a grin and simpers: “Can I get something to drink that isn't for children, mom?”  
Sehun shakes his head with a small snort and gets up from his chair, returning soon after with two jugs of what seems to be beer and Baekhyun takes a tentative sip before nodding to himself and licking away the foam that clings to his upper lip.  
He doesn't like beer all that much because his father always stinks of it, but this is almost nice. They are just sitting and eating and drinking and slowly Sehun begins to talk again while they do so, leaning back in his chair and Baekhyun thinks to himself that he hasn't seen the other this relaxed since he met him.  
“I was born here.”, Sehun says slowly, staring at his jug and tracing his finger across a small crack in the ceramic. Baekhyun swallows the sip of beer he has in his mouth and asks:  
“In this village?”  
“Right here.”, Sehun chuckles and points to the fireplace three feet to his left. “Right on this rug over there. But yes, you could say that I was born in this village and it wouldn't be wrong.”  
“Excuse me?” Baekhyun gapes at him for a second, eyes flickering over to the flimsy rug by the fire and then back to the boys face. “You mean that? Are you kidding?”  
“I am not kidding.”, Sehun says briskly, scrunching up his face. “My mother gave birth to me right there and as soon as they had cut the umbilical cord she went back to work.”  
Baekhyun blinks a couple of times and shakes his head to clear and sort his thoughts again, but the image Sehuns words have painted in his head is too strong to just brush it aside. He tries to imagine Sehun as a baby, tries to imagine what the boy must have looked like, but he fails because he is staring at him from across the table with dark eyes and a wet bottom lip and Baekhyun has to clear his throat before he questions: “And what about you? Did she just ignore you? I mean, babies cry when they are born and they need to be fed, right?”  
Sehun lifts one shoulder and takes another sip from his beer, brushing his thumb over the corner of his lip to get the foam away, cleaning his finger carelessly on his pants.  
“I don't know.”, Sehun mutters then, eyes trained on the spot where he was born. “They told me that the Master picked me up and cleaned me and cared for me before my mother sold me to him in that exact night.”  
And now Baekhyun tries to imagine Sehuns mother- what did she look like? What kind of person was she to sell her newly born child just like that?- but Sehun rips him out of his thoughts with a clear of his throat.  
“Don't think too much about it.”, he tells Baekhyun with something that is almost a smile. “I guess it was better that way. Just think about it. I wouldn't be alive if the Master hadn't bought me, I think.”  
“So you think you owe him your life, right? Is that why you are willing to destroy the world for him?”, Baekhyun asks him so fast his brain doesn't even register what he said before it's too late. But he doesn't take the words back, just looks at Sehun with wide eyes and Sehun is looking right back at him, his lips a thin line and his eyes slightly narrowed. But then he sighs and shakes his head, not even giving an answer and Baekhyun lets it slip.  
So they sit there for a couple of minutes without saying anything, just looking at each other and Sehun seems like he wants to say something when suddenly there is an arm slinging itself around his neck and pulling him backwards. His chair makes a dangerous tilt and then he is crashing to the floor with flailing arms and a yelp that is really embarrassing, but Baekhyun is too shocked to tease him with it.  
Next to where Sehun is now laying on the floor, groaning because he hit his head and struggling to get out of the chair, stands a man- no, scratch that, a child. Nothing more than a boy, clad in a green cloak, a shirt that looks like it's made of autumn leafs, brown leather pants and he has- Baekhyun opens his mouth and closes it again in shock- pointy ears.  
The boy cackles- he really cackles- and claps his hands while he looks down at Sehun, who is still not up from the floor because he is too busy rubbing the spot on his head where it met the hardwood floor.  
“Stay down.”, he snickers and nudges Sehun with the tip of his boot and Sehun growls at him. “You look good down there. Can you help me looking for that silverling I just dropped?”  
“Very funny.”, Sehun grumbles and finally gets up, sending the boy a glare while he picks up his chair and drags it over so that he is as far away from the boy as he can be. “You're late.”  
“Am I?”, the boy gloats and plops down on the chair on the other side of Baekhyun, who just looks at him with wide eyes.  
“And who might you be?”, the boy asks happily, elbows on the table and hands under his chin while he blinks his big brown eyes at Baekhyun, who leans back a little bit.  
“Leave him alone.”, Sehun snaps and pulls at Baekhyuns chair so he is right next to Sehun and he can't even protest. Doesn't even want to, because- quite honestly- this boy is strange.  
“Oh.”, the boy makes and runs a hand through his spiky blond hair. “You're such a killjoy, Sehun. I am just being polite.”  
“Stop that, Xiumin.”, Sehun growls and the boy lifts his hands in surrender, but the bright smile on his face is almost as evil as the glint in his eyes. “He is none of your business.”  
“Right, right.”, Xiumin snickers and kicks his feet out under the table, already starting to talk when a voice booms over the noise of the tavern.  
“You there!”, the innkeeper all but yells over the ruckus, pointing one giant finger at Xiumin who simply lifts an eyebrows at him and purses his lips and the man continues angrily: “Can't you read? There is a sign at the door! No Faeries allowed in here!”  
“Oh?”, Xiumin questions, the grin never falling from his lips. “I didn't see that. What sign are you talking about, good man?  
“Why you little-”, the innkeeper starts and then Xiumin is waving his hand at him, fingers snapping and a ball of silver glitter hits the man right in the face. He blinks dumbly, the tavern falls silent and someone mutters: “Oh, not again. He will mess up orders for the entire evening now. Thank you very much, Xiumin.”  
“You are welcome!”, Xiumin chirrups and claps his hand while he turns back to Sehun, who looks like he is in pain, one hand rubbing over his forehead.  
“Now. Where were we?”, the Faery asks and Baekhyun nearly chokes because the boy is looking right at him with glittering eyes that are changing color from brown to green and then settle for a golden glow that is similar to the color of the leafs his shirt is made of.  
“The stone.”, Sehun cuts in quickly before Baekhyun can say something and just like that he is able to look away from the Faery boy again, who puffs out his cheeks like he is disappointed. “Do you have it?”  
“Of course I have it, you idiot.”, Xiumin rolls his eyes, reaching into his cloak and then pulling a small linen bag from the inner pocket, dropping it onto the table and Sehun releases a breath that sounds utterly relieved. Xiumin cocks his head to the side and then holds out a hand so quickly, Baekhyun nearly falls back with his chair because he recoiled from the boy so fast, the front legs of his chair leave the floor and the Faery sends him a small grin that shows sharp canine teeth.  
“My payment.”, Xiumin says cheerily and wiggles his fingers and again Sehun looks like he is in pain, but the places his own hand in Xiumins and the Faery is quick to close his fingers around Sehuns wrist and turn it so that the knights palm is facing upwards. Baekhyun stays silent while the Faery traces a small finger over the lines in Sehuns hand and then clicks his tongue, nodding a few times before he inhales and then releases his breath again.  
“Alright.”, he says then, sounding a little bit more calm. “Thank you.  
“What ever.”, Sehun mutters and gets up from his chair, but his legs seem to be shaky. “I'll be right back. I need... I need something to drink.”  
“Goodbye Sehun!”, Xiumin gloats and Sehun waves a hand over his shoulder, already on his way to the counter- that is just close enough to not be out of the barrier that surrounds them- where he leans on his forearms while ordering.  
Baekhyun watches him with worried eyes and then turns back, only to yelp and nearly jump out of his skin because Xiumins face is basically all he can see, so close is the Faery now.  
“Nice little spell you have there.”, Xiumin whispers and Baekhyun shrinks into himself in his chair, but the Faery stays close, cocking his head to the side and blinking his bright golden eyes at him, teeth worrying his bottom lip. “I wonder if he knows.”  
“What did you do to him?”, Baekhyun asks, his voice shaky and he doesn't even know why.  
Xiumin doesn't really seem threatening and he is even shorter than Baekhyun, but something about him has Baekhyuns skin crawling.  
“I didn't do anything.”, Xiumin chuckles, still way too close for comfort. “I just took my payment. A year, nothing big. Don't worry about him. I won't even keep it.”  
“Huh?”, Baekhyun makes eloquently and Xiumin reaches out to pat his head with a tiny hand before he gets up from his chair and pushes the bag he placed on the table a little bit more towards Baekhyun. “Don't break this one too. I'll see you around! Goodbye, Baekhyun.”  
“Goodbye...”, he mutters, looking after the Faery when the boy disappears between the people in the tavern and then out the door. He doesn't even realize that he never told him his name.

 

Sehun is in a bad mood.  
He is in such a bad mood that he nearly trips over his own feet because he is glaring at the door where Xiumin just disappeared and doesn't focus where he is going. He hates Faeries, but sometimes they are the only people who can help. Not that he would ever make deals with them ever, but the Master orders him, so Sehun does what he is told. What is one year more or less? He doesn't want to grow old anyways.  
“Are you okay?”, Baekhyun asks and Sehun grunts, swaying where he stands next to their table, staring down into his jug full of milk and then he shrugs, heaving a deep sigh and reaches into his pocket to take a little bit of Brittleroot to pop it into his mouth.  
The sharp taste of the root mixes well with the milk and it will soothe the dizzy feeling in his head enough for him to function again. He chews slowly, taking small sips of his milk, still standing because he feels like sitting down will be the end of him and then swallows.  
“Did you talk to him?”, he asks and Baekhyun opens his mouth, only to close it again, looking confused. His eyes are a little bit too big and unfocused and Sehun sighs deeply.  
“Alright.”, he says then slowly, taking Baekhyun by the upper arm and dragging him out of his chair. “We're going to bed.”  
“Huh.”, Baekhyun just makes and follows Sehun without even putting up the slightest fight. Sehun is practically dragging him up the stairs and Baekhyun feels a little bit lightheaded.  
“Wonderful.”, Sehun mumbles when he is locking the door to their tiny room behind them and Baekhyun makes that sound again, completely out of it. “I hate Faeries.”  
“What?”, Baekhyun squawks and Sehun grimaces. He pushes the other to the bed, almost gently so and sits him down, kneeling down in front of him to undo his shoes and pull them off of the boys feet. And still Baekhyun is not putting up a fight, not even when Sehun starts pulling at his shirt and he just raises his arms like a child and lets the other undress him.  
“Sleep.”, Sehun orders him and Baekhyun nods slowly, sinking down into the sheets with his head hitting the pillow with a soft sound and he is asleep so fast, Sehun doesn't even have the chance to tell him goodnight.  
“I hate Faeries.”, he whispers again, clenching his fingers in the material of Baekhyuns shirt and then turns around to hang the shirt over the small dresser by the wall.  
“I see you got the second stone.”, someone says in the shadows behind the door and Sehun startles, placing a hand over his chest with a groan. “By the gods, you scared me.”  
"I am sorry.”, Chanyeol chuckles and slinks out of the shadow, paws not making a single sound on the dusty floor. “I didn't mean to scare you, Sehun. How was Xiumin?”  
“As always.”, Sehun answers slowly and watches Chanyeol hop onto the bed, sniffing at Baekhyuns face and something inside of him twists.  
“What did the Master say?”  
“Nothing much.”, Chanyeol purrs and rubs his face against Baekhyuns shoulder. “He is angry because you broke the flask, but he says there is a way to fix it. The boy is still carrying the binding spell after all, so we just have to transfer it.”  
Sehun lifts an eyebrow and stays silent and Chanyeol hops off the bed, moving over to the window and pushing it open with his muzzle. “We won't do it, right?”  
“No.”, Sehun says curtly and Chanyeol smirks at him.  
“I knew you didn't change your mind.”  
“When do I ever change my mind?”, Sehun shoots right back and Chanyeol lets his black tongue flick out of his nose. They hold each others eyes for a long time and then Chanyeol says: “He will kill us.”  
“He will try.”, Sehun shrugs and pulls his own shirt over his head.  
“If you say so.”, Chanyeol snickers and then disappears into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Hello everybody! *hands out cinnamon rolls*   
as always the warning: Plotholes and typos and no storyline that makes sense :'D

 

Baekhyun used to sleep in his brothers bed.  
He didn't have nightmares as a child, he just didn't want to sleep alone. His mother said it was because he used to be a cuddler as a child. Well, technically he still is a cuddler, but his brother doesn't want to share his bed with him anymore. They're too old to sleep under one blanket. He misses the warmth some nights, misses the feeling of having talked all night, hidden under the blanket and sharing secrets and reading comics together under the light of his brothers phone. He misses all this and so it's no surprise to him that he wakes up this morning, his head pounding and his face pressed against the side of ribcage. For a moment he thinks it's his brother, the smell of fresh laundry and soap having him relaxing and then he remembers that his brother never had a protective hand on his hip and that his brother never slept with a shirt on. Baekhyun stiffens, raising his head a little bit and takes in his situation.  
He has one leg thrown over Sehuns hip, an arm around his chest and is almost laying on top of him, but the other doesn't seem to mind, eyes still closed and breathing still steady. But Baekhyun minds. Very much so, because his face is heating up so rapidly that he feels like his head is going to explode. He can't move though. Sehun has such a tight grip on Baekhyuns waist that every movement would wake him up.   
Baekhyun knows that Sehun hasn't the deepest sleep of all time and so he stays still, watching Sehun sleep for a long- very, very long- moment. And then he notices that he is fulfilling yet another cliché and the though has his face heating up even more. He is falling for Sehun.  
What else?  
Of course he has to become protagonist in his own twisted little story (but aren't we all protagonists of our lives after all?), fall into a book, land on the bad guy and then fall in love with him. Baekhyun isn't one to use the word love quickly and he knows that he doesn't even know Sehun good enough to say that he is in love with him, but why the hell is he reaching out and traces the bow of the others upper lip with the tip of his finger? He has no reason, no right to do so and he holds his breath when his finger slips to the corner of Sehuns mouth and for a moment Sehuns breath hitches, but then he sighs and turns his head away with a small mumble that has Baekhyuns heart flutter.  
Sehun is still a child.  
Baekhyun doesn't know how old he is, doesn't know a single thing about him and yet here he is, staring at him like a creep and imagines what it would feel like to kiss him. Sehuns face looks so soft when he sleeps, he notices. So much younger when he isn't furrowing his eyebrows and pursing his lips. He looks almost cute with the way his jaw moves for a second and he turns his head again so he is facing Baekhyun once more.  
He holds his breath, lets his index finger run over the bridge of Sehuns nose and then the other opens his eyes and looks at him, Baekhyuns finger on the tip of his nose and Baekhyun is frozen in shock before he blurts: “Boop!”  
He presses his finger down on Sehuns nose and then rips himself away, flailing when his legs get caught in the blanket and he falls out of bed. He yelps and stays on the floor, one of his legs still on the bed and still wrapped inside of the blanket.  
Sehuns head appears at the edge of the mattress and he peers down at Baekhyun and Baekhyun looks back up at him and waits for Sehun to scold him. What he doesn't expect is for the other to start laughing. First his bottom lip starts quivering and then he starts laughing loudly, shoulders shaking and he rolls back onto the bed, snickering.  
“Help me up.”, Baekhyun orders him and Sehun appears again, eyebrows raised and chin propped up on one of his hands.  
“No.”, he chuckles and Baekhyun glares at him. Sehun meets his eyes completely unfazed and he even has the guts to smirk down at Baekhyun, who just glares a little harder, even though his eyes hold no fire at all. After a moment Sehun reaches out for him with both hands, sitting up onto his knees and pulls Baekhyun into a sitting position, ruffling his brown hair and then turning away to slip out of bed. It's hard to move around the room with bond between them, five feet aren't exactly much and Baekhyun ends up with his back against the wall next to the small dresser where Sehun is washing his face, brushing his teeth lazily.  
“We will reach the coast soon.”, Sehn tells him conversationally and Baekhyun makes a small sound as a sign that he heard him. “You will like it there.”  
“You think so?”, Baekhyun asks, looking up at Sehun with foam bubbling over his bottom lip. Sehun meets his eyes again and nods once, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.  
“Have you ever been by the sea?”, he asks and Baekhyun shakes his head, smiling right back at him while he pushes the toothbrush against his lips. “Oh.”, Sehun makes and then reaches out to ruffle his hair again- Baekhyun isn't sure if he likes it or not because he feels like a little kid when the taller does it, but he can't deny that is has something strangely nice to it- and says: “You will like the mermaids.”  
Mermaids, Baekhyun thinks with a scoff. Of course there are mermaids in this world.

 

Sehun pays exactly seven silverlings for supplies that will last them to the coast and back to civilization, begrudgingly stuffing the food into his saddle bags while Baekhyun tries to get up onto the horses back. It's completely hilarious to watch him, but Sehun doesn't tease him this time. He simply steps up behind him, pushes his foot deeper into the stirrup and then reaches out to place his head onto the one Baekhyun has on the saddle.  
“You have to pull your body up the moment you push.”, he tells him, completely missing Baekhyuns shudder. “And you have to swing your leg up at the same time. You won't fall.”  
“But-”, Baekhyun starts and Sehun interrupts him: “Try it. I got you.”  
He hesitates for a second, but Sehuns body behind him is steady and warm and strong and so he takes a deep breath and pulls himself up. Sehun is just holding his waist, fingers splayed wide and when he is sitting in the saddle, he gives he other a bright grin, Sehun looking up at him with a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.  
“See?”, Sehun says and pats his knee. “It's not that hard.”  
“Watch out!”, Baekhyun chuckles and kicks his leg out at the other playfully. “I will need my own horse if you keep teaching me stuff like that!”  
Sehun looks like he is about to say something, now downright smiling, but then the smile slips from his face and then he replies: “But you won't be here long enough for me to teach you how to ride, you know? You want to go home, remember?”  
The words sink in slowly and Baekhyun stops grinning himself, eyebrows knitting together for a moment and Sehun turns away to strap down his backpack to the saddle, hoisting himself up behind Baekhyun just a moment later while Baekhyun is staring at his hands that are laying on the saddle between his legs.  
He wants to go home... remember?  
The thought of being separated all of a sudden, even after only three days seems strange to him. He is getting used to Sehun being around and what happened earlier is still vividly clear in his mind. Baekhyun knows that he is making things complicated with this, he knows it and still he can't stop himself and when they ride away from the tavern, he is still looking down at his hands. He doesn't even notice that Chanyeol is not with them.

 

The way to the coast is leading them through fields of flowers and rice, the sun nice and warm against the naked skin of Baekhyuns arms after he rolled up his sleeves and starts feeding Sehun little pieces of dried fruit over his shoulder around noon. It's pleasant to be like this, talking about mediocre stuff like the first time Baekhyun broke a bone or the first time Sehun tried to play a lute and quickly discovered that he is not made for music. He enjoys it though, Sehun tells him after a while, the movements of the horse jostling their bodies a little bit, but Baekhyun has gotten used to it by now. Sehun straightens his back from time to time, pulling at his shoulders with a click of his tongue and Baekhyun always sends him a sheepish smile over his shoulder before popping another dried fruit into the others mouth.  
And the sea is just as beautiful as Sehun told him it is, blue and endless, with waves that are sprinkled with white and gray, rolling against a cliff that is as white as paper, glittering in the sunlight like a thousand little crystals and Sehun stops the horse on the way so Baekhyun can take a proper look, chuckling without a sound behind him when Baekhyun makes a soft little “ohhh” and leans forward on the horse so he can look across the field of red flowers in front of them, watching the waves roll against the stones and drawing little figures of foam at the nearby beach.  
“This is awesome.”, he decides after a long moment of silence between them, nearly breaking his own neck when he turns to grin at Sehun. “And there are mermaids here?”  
“More... or less.”, Sehun shrugs and the horse is moving again, taking them towards the beach and the cliffs and Baekhyun starts fidgeting in the saddle because he wants to be out of it and running over the sand to feel if the water is warm around his feet or if it is as cold as it feels.  
Sehun seems reluctant at first, but then he lets him slip out of the saddle and Baekhyun takes off his shoes so quickly, he nearly stumbles over his own feet. The sand isn't like you see it on television, not white but strangely gray and a little bit green in between and it sparkles just like the cliffs. Baekhyun turns to Sehun and grins, eyes crinkling when he asks:  
“Wanna join me?”  
“I'm supposed to meet someone here.”, Sehun replies softly and hops our of the saddle too, his boots scrunching in the sand. “Go ahead, I will find you, okay? And stay away from the water.”  
Baekhyun rolls his eyes and kicks his shoes to the side, sure that no one will steal them here- there isn't a single person on the beach or near it besides Sehun and himself- and waves at Sehun who just shakes his head with a bemused look and then he turns away and starts wandering off along the beach. The sand feels strange under his feet for a couple of minutes, the little grains sticking to the spaces between his toes and Baekhyun spends a couple of minutes just walking and dodging waves that are licking at his feet.  
He walks through a stone tunnel where the water washed away the stone under the cliffs and then he stops, because he hears laughter. It echoes a little bit in the tunnel and Baekhyun stops walking for a second, peering out around the edge of the stone.  
Behind the cliff are formations of Basalt stones, natural staircases along the cliff and between them are little bonds that glitter like diamonds in the light of the sun. Baekhyun hears the laughter again, louder this time and then he spots something bright between the stones, bright blue between the gray of the stone and his eyes go as round as saucers. There, on the stones and beside a pond, lays a boy on his stomach, chin propped up on his hands and obviously naked, but where his legs should be, there is a fish tail the color of sky, flicking lazily up and down and splashing in a puddle of water.  
He laughs and talks and Baekhyun sees another boy sitting in the pond, a bright red tail raising above the water and then crashing into it again, sending a wave against the other boys face.  
“Oh!”, the one with the red tail suddenly makes and points to where Baekhyun is standing, a happy grin on his face from what Baekhyun can see. “Look!”  
The one with the blue tail turns his head and waves Baekhyun over just as happy and he follows the motion, slowly walking across the strip of sand until he stands just by the stones, looking up to where the blue tailed man lays on his stomach.  
“Hello!”, the one with the red tail exclaims happily and thrusts a hand forward so fast, Baekhyun almost recoils. His mouth is still hanging open, his eyes are still wide and blue tail reaches over with a chuckle and presses fingers under his chin to close his mouth.  
“Never saw a merman before?”, he asks and his voice is gentle, almost shy. “Excuse my friend here, he has a really unhealthy obsession with humans.”  
“Not true!”, the other objects loudly and flicks his tail again so another wave of water hits blue tails face. “That's mean, Yixing.”  
“Is it?”, Yixing answers and jerks his head so his wet blond hair falls away from his eyes. “Look at him! He can't even speak and you probably scared him! You don't just hold out your hand like that to a stranger! Be gentle for once, will you, Suho?”  
Suho scoffs and turns his head away, but his eyes are still on Baekhyun.  
But then suddenly he turns again, leaning over the edge of the pond so his upper body is resting on the warm stones and pokes Baekhyun in the chest with one slender finger.  
“You.”, he smiles. “Are you really not able to talk? Did you sell your voice to a witch?”  
“That's a fairytale.”, Yixing mutters beside him, but he looks at Baekhyun too, bright golden eyes sparkling in the light of the sun.  
“Uhm...”, Baekhyun makes and it's as if the mermen are holding their breath. “No witches... I'm just... I never saw mermaids before is... uhm... all.”  
The two boys in front of him share a knowing look and before he knows it, he has shed his clothes and is sitting next to them in the pond, only in his underwear while Suho is braiding his hair and Yixing gives him patronizing looks while filling a sea shell with something that looks like milk and tastes like strawberries when Baekhyun takes the first sip. The taste changes from sip to sip though and he chuckles along to Suhos happy babbling while Yixing only rolls his eyes from time to time, tail flicking and scales glittering in the sunlight.  
“And darling, let me tell you!”, Suho says then, waving a hand around. “Those boots the soldiers are wearing these days are out even under water!”  
“And we are ten years behind in fashion.”, Yixing adds tiredly, as if this is a practiced talk between the two and when Baekhyun catches his eyes, the merman gives him a little wink.  
“But the purpose of pants is beyond me.”, Suho keeps talking and Baekhyun points out:  
“That's because you don't have legs.”  
He sticks out one leg so he an wiggle his toes for the mermen to see and Suho claps a hand onto his own forehead, giving Yixing a look that clearly says: “See? That's why I don't understand what pants are for!”  
But Baekhyun can't concentrate on them anymore, not when he stares straight past his toes and at Sehun, who stands by the pond with his arms crossed over his chest with a frown so deep, his eyebrows look like they are knitted together forever.  
“Oh, hi!”, Baekhyun squeaks and Sehun grunts in return.  
“Hello, Sehun!”, both merman say in unison and Sehun glares at both of them, what doesn't seem to faze them at all since they both just grin at him so brightly, all their teeth are showing and their eyes are crinkling. Yixing rolls onto his back then, sitting up so he can scoot a little closer to where the- obviously not amused- knight is standing, stretching both arms out to him and sing-songs: “It's been a while, Sehun! Let me give you a kiss!”  
“No, thank you.”, Sehun mutters and actually steps back, keeping his eyes on Baekhyun, who drops his leg back into the water, a bright crimson blush on his cheeks. “What are you doing here?”, Sehun asks and Suho answers: “He is spending time with us, what else.”  
“I can see that.”, Sehun sighs and offers his hands to Baekhyun, curling his fingers. “Get out of there. Those mermaids are tricky little bastards.”  
“We are not!”, Suho whines and Yixing shushes him.  
“You are not?”, Sehun asks sarcastically, stepping closer and taking Baekhyun by the arm while he comes to his feet on wobbly legs, stepping out of the pond and then releasing a startled sound when he notices that his toes and his fingers are wrinkly and his skin looks like he sat in the water for hours. And then Sehun adds: “So you didn't trick him into stepping into this pond and gave him food from the deep kingdom?”  
“Oh come on, Sehun, don't be a killjoy.”, Yixing snickers and Sehun sends him such a deathly glare Baekhyun shivers in his hold. He stumbles over his own feet when he is back on the sand, his legs still feeling wobbly and he doesn't even realize he is clinging to Sehun like his life depends on it.  
“I am not being a killjoy.”, Sehun mutters angrily and wraps a steady arm around Baekhyuns middle to keep him upright. Suddenly he feels cold, Baekhyun notices, his teeth rattling and his fingertips are slightly blue, but the water had felt warm and the light of the sun was nice too! But now he shivers so violently he can't even speak properly, words dying in his throat and Sehun clicks his tongue at him angrily, pulling him away from the mermen who sigh in frustration and call after them: “Goodbye Sehun! Goodbye sweetheart Baekhyun! Come back soon, okay? We will miss you!”  
“He won't come back ever!”, Sehun yells over his shoulder and drags Baekhyun away and back through the tunnel he came through and Baekhyun protests softly, struggling against the others hold on his arm until Sehun stops talking and yanks him forward, looking him into the eyes with such a serious expression, that Baekhyuns mouth snaps shut in an instant.  
“Stop.”, Sehun tells him even though Baekhyun isn't even talking anymore. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it was what you just did? You consumed food from the kingdom underneath! They could have dragged you under, do you even know that?”  
“But they were so nice!”, Baekhyun whines, voice faint and almost dreamy. “I like them. They are pretty. Can we go back?”  
“Listen to yourself.”, Sehun sighs and hoists him up, simply throwing the smaller boy over his shoulder and Baekhyun squeaks loudly, pounding his fists onto Sehuns lower back- not that Sehun would ever admit it, but the smaller has quite some strength in those little fists of his.  
They leave the beach just minutes after, Sehun setting Baekhyun down on a rock at the side of the road where he tied his horse to a signpost and cups the smallers face between his hands, angling his head up, again looking him in the eyes pointedly.  
“Mermaids are tricky bastards.”, he tells him, voice low and then he starts rubbing Baekhyuns arms with his palms and Baekhyun suddenly notices that he is shivering so violently his whole body is vibrating. Sehun makes a worried sound and rubs a little harder, cursing undere his breath when he notices that they left Baekhyuns clothes with the mermen back at the cliff.  
“You completely forget the time, Baekhyun.”, Sehun continues softly, crouching in front of him and taking his fingers into his hands to massage his knuckles and get the blood back into Baekhyuns fingers that are still slightly blue at the tips. “You've been in there for hours, trust me. And in the end you would have consumed so much of their food and that disgusting drink that you would have forgotten that you're not a mermaid. You would have followed them into the ocean and drowned.”  
“But they are nice.”, Baekhyun mutters and Sehun nods slowly, black hair falling into his eyes and Baekhyun itches to brush it away. “I know they are not doing it on purpose. It's just who they are. They are immortal and they don't understand that a human has a long life too. For them a human life ends in seconds, you know?”  
“Huh.”, Baekhyun makes softly when Sehun stops massaging his fingers. He is completely aware of the fact that he is sitting in his wet boxer shorts in front of the other, skin pale and wrinkles and that he is still doddering so hard that his teeth are rattling. Sehun looks at him strangely for a long moment and then starts undoing the buttons of his shirt, simply tugging it over his head with Baekhyun staring at him with wide eyes and the next thing he knows is that Sehun is manhandling him so that he can slip the shirt over his arms and over his head, tugging it down so it covers his upper body and a part of his thighs.  
“Stupid.”, he whispers while getting up and walking over the the horse, digging through the saddle bags and pulling out another shirt.  
“I have my own clothes.”, Baekhyun says loudly and Sehun shoots him a glare.  
“Yes, you have your own clothes and those clothes are cold and you are freezing. Just- shut up.”, he grumbles and Baekhyun purses his lips, rubbing his own arms while he waits for Sehun to return. He has to admit that Sehuns shirt is warm and it smells nice, the heat of the others body still clinging to the cotton and he can't really find it in him to tell the other off again.  
Sehun is back in a matter of minutes, a new shirt on- a white one, what a surprise (yes, it looks nice on him, Baekhyun adds mentally to his observation)- and a pair of pants in his hand, thick woolen socks that look way too big for Baekhyuns small feet wedged under his arm and he kneels in front of Baekhyun again, scooting a little bit closer of the grass and Baekhyun flinches away from him when Sehun reaches for the waistband of his underwear.  
“What?”, Sehun asks irritated and Baekhyun swats at his hands.  
“I am not going to undress in front of you, idiot!”, Baekhyun says and Sehun arches an eyebrow. But he doesn't argue, just drops the socks and pants into Baekhyuns lap and stands up again, hands raised. “What ever you say.”  
“Sure.”, Baekhyun grumbles and waits for Sehun to turn around. But then a thought strikes him and he pauses where he is dragging the wet underwear down his trembling legs, body suddenly going rigid and he straightens his back so fast, he hears his spine pop.  
“We were able to walk away from each other.”  
“Hm?”, Sehun hums, inspecting his fingernails with his back turned towards Baekhyun and Baekhyun kicks his leg out and hits Sehun right in the ass, jostling him forward a little and Sehun is about to turn around and snap at him, when he lifts a hand and repeats:  
“We were able to walk away from each other! Sehun! The binding spell-”  
“Oh.”, Sehun makes and lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “Right.”  
“Right?”, Baekhyun echoes incredulously and throws his hands up. “Since when are we able to walk away from each other more than seven feet?”  
“Five.”, Sehun corrects him again and Baekhyun groans. “It's because of Xiumin.”  
“The Faery boy?”, Baekhyun questions and blinks rapidly when he tries to remember what the Faery looked like. The evening is hazy though, like he drank too much beer- which is impossible since he only drank one jug and Baekhyun can handle his liquor, thank you very much. Sehun is watching him almost carefully, face smoothed into an impassive expression while he answers: “He stole the spell.”  
“Great.”, Baekhyun wheezes, shaking his head back and forth so fast his wet hair whips around his head, the small shells Suho braided into his strands hitting him in the face. “And when were you going to tell me this?”  
“Right now.”, Sehun decides and gestures to his underwear that is bunched somewhere around his knees. “Are you going to dress or...?”  
Baekhyun flushes a bright red and kicks Sehun again.

 

As it is, Baekhyun finds our who Sehun has been meeting up with shortly after that. He has no shoes on, sits in front of Sehun on the stallions back again with Sehuns arms wrapped protectively around his middle so his hands are resting on the smaller boys thighs- rude, Baekhyun grumbles to himself a couple of times, but Sehun shushes him and asks him: “You're still cold, aren't you?” and Baekhyun shuts himself up- when they ride further down the coast and towards a road that seems to run through the land like a bridge, high on pillars above the ground. Sehun tells him that this is the Knights Road, the path the Knight took out of the capital city and this road was built in his honor.  
There is another horse at the side of the road and Sehun slows down their horse when they see a man standing up from where he was sitting on the ground next to it, struggling with something in his hands. Baekhyun thinks it's a cat for a moment, or a ferret or something, but then his jaw drops when they come closer and he realizes it's a dragon. A tiny dragon that is crawling up the blond mans arm, ripping his sleeve in the process.  
“Ouch!”, the tall man complaints and the dragons snaps at his ear, catching a dangling earring and tugging with gusto until the blond man screeches: “Okay, I got it! Stop! That hurts!”  
“You two.”, Sehun mumbles and shakes his head, finally stopping his horse next to the man that is still trying to get the dragon away from his ear. The tiny thing hisses and snaps at this fingers, burying his claws into the mans shoulder when he pulls him off and holds him away from himself with both his arms outstretched in front of him like one would hold a baby.  
“Stop biting me!”, the blond says briskly and the dragon huffs.  
Baekhyun is still staring at them with wide eyes and then tugs on Sehuns sleeve to get his attention to whispers: “This is a dragon.”  
“Correction.”, the blond replies, a suffering look on his face. “This is a pest.”  
“Am I?”, the dragon quips and Baekhyuns mouth snaps shut. “You deserve it!”  
“Really?”, the blond asks right back and the dragon sinks his teeth into the others fingers.  
“Ouch!”  
“You two!”, Sehun suddenly says loudly, snapping his fingers in their direction. “Focus! We need to go to the capital as soon as we can! The vortex? The eclipse? Remember something like that? Focus.”  
“Yes, sir.”, the dragon gloats and scrambles up the others arm again, settling himself on the others shoulder while showing all his teeth in what seems to be a grin, pointing his tail at Baekhyun. “Is this the boy?”  
“Yes.”, Sehun answers curtly and steers their horse away from them again. “Hurry up.”  
“What is up with him?”, Baekhyun hears the blond whisper and the dragon answers: “The usual.”  
Baekhyun is silent for a long time while they ride along the Knights Road, the blond and the dragon bickering behind them and Sehuns hands tighten on the reigns until he yells over his shoulder: “Yifan! Shut him up! Why didn't the spell make him mute, huh?!”  
“He did it on purpose!”, the dragons yells right back at him, a small puff of fire escaping him. “He would miss my voice terribly! But he likes to carry me around anyways!”  
“I do not.”, the blond grumbles and Sehun adds: “And no one would miss your voice, Tao.”  
Baekhyun doesn't know what to think in this moment, eyes wide and his head reeling.  
Dragons.  
And Baekhyun could fill and entire book with the things he learns while traveling with Sehun and the unlikely pair that seems to be constantly fighting, their voices loud enough to drown out Baekhyuns thoughts while he leans back against Sehun and lets the others body heat seep into his skin, making a mental list of those things as this wondrous world passes him.  
1: Everything he sees can possibly kill him.  
2: Cute Faery boys and handsome mermen are not to trust.  
3: Tiny dragons don't exist and are grown men that are turned into dragons because of spells.  
4: He dislikes magic.  
5: There are many people in this world that are not on the same page as the king of this land.  
6: Sehun is way too warm and way too comfortable.  
7: He can go home.

 

The capital city is something right out of a fantasy book or a movie, Baekhyun decides. The city is located against the slope of a mountain, the castle half hidden in the rocks and the surrounding town falling down in long winding streets that are made of thick uneven cobblestone that feels warm under his naked feet. Sehun grumbles that he has to buy boots for him and Baekhyun just flashed him a grin that has the other rolling his eyes dramatically. There seems to be a celebration of some kind- of course there is, Baekhyun thinks to himself while he follows Sehun into the streets, guiding their horse on its reigns behind him. A celebration has to be held when the hero of the story arrives in town.  
But Sehun is not the hero and neither is Baekhyun.  
The streets are filled with people, dancing around fires and singing songs at the tops of their lungs and Baekhyun loses himself in the colors and smells and noises for a moment before Sehun takes his hand and pulls him along. The tavern they arrive in is so small and the ceiling is so low that Sehun suddenly seems like a giant because he has to duck his head, but the room they rent is nice and the mattress is soft under Baekhyuns body when he sprawls himself out in the sheets face down and spread eagle.  
“Here.”, Sehun says and hands him the boots he bought on their way here, tossing them down on the floor next to the bed when Baekhyun only grunts at him and turns his head away. There are drums playing somewhere outside and probably right below the narrow window of their room and Baekhyun listens to the hypnotic sound for a while before he sits up and turns to face Sehun who is washing his face by the dresser.  
“Say.”, he starts and Sehun meets his eyes through the mirror. Baekhyun hesitates for a second, biting down on his bottom lip and then continues: “Now that we are not bound together anymore... does that mean you will send me home earlier?”  
“Earlier.”, Sehun repeats slowly and then tilts his head to the side. “The vortex you need to go through opens when the eclipse is. There is no such thing as earlier.”  
“And you're still going to summon that super dangerous demon?”, Baekhyun asks him softly and suddenly Sehuns face does that thing again. He pauses, face completely void of any emotion and then he grimaces, eyebrows knitting together and Baekhyun knows that he won't get an answer out of him.  
“What about the stones then?”, he presses and Sehun shoots him a look through the mirror that clearly says “why are you asking so many questions”.  
“Tao and Yifan are getting me the last one I need.”, he answers simply and then dabs a cotton towel across his face. He stands there for a moment, fingers hooked into the waistband of his pants and simply looks at Baekhyun and Baekhyun looks right back at him.  
The moment stretches, turns into long minutes that are ticking by slowly and Baekhyun doesn't even know why they are looking at each other like that. He feels like he should say something but he doesn't and Sehun is silent too after all.  
The eclipse is the day after tomorrow, they only two days left if at all and suddenly Baekhyun isn't so sure anymore if he wants to go home. There is nothing waiting for him at home. A drunk father, a crying mother, a useless brother.  
No future for Byun Baekhyun because his grades are horrible.

But then his palms burn and he knows that Mister Oh is still there waiting for him to come home and he shouldn't be here in the first place. He doesn't belong into this world.  
“Where is Chanyeol?”, he breaks the silence eventually and thinks that Sehun looks oddly disappointed.  
“He went to get the Master.”, Sehun only shrugs and then this moment between them is over and Baekhyuns wants it back. He wants Sehuns eyes back on him, wants this little bubble back that was around them just seconds ago. Like the drums weren't too loud and the world isn't ending because Sehun is the villain after all and like Baekhyun isn't going home again and this is not just a book.  
But that's life and Baekhyun can't change it. Not matter how hard he might try.  
“Let's...”, he starts and Sehun ends: “Go out for a bit?”  
Baekhyun smiles at him and Sehun smiles back, a little sad maybe and Baekhyun is sure that Sehun knows what he thought about right now. They are so used to sticking together, he notices while they leave the room, Sehun handing him the heavy key to their room and then takes him by the hand, tugging him along and out of the tavern like it's the most natural thing on earth. And Baekhyun lets him because he is used to it- as strange as that might sound. He doesn't want to let go of Sehuns hand even for a second as soon as they step out of the tavern, the sun setting behind the mountain and casting long streaks of shadow and light over the town, down the streets and there are lanterns everywhere.  
“What are they celebrating?”, Baekhyun wants to know when Sehun offers him a small piece of baked bread that tastes like honey and cherries on his tongue when he bites into it, a little bit of grease dribbling down his chin, sugar and cinnamon clinging to his upper lip and Sehun looks utterly bemused while he licks his own fingers clean of honey.  
“I don't know.”, he gives the silent answer. “But does it matter? Come on.”  
There are fire eaters and other artists performing on every corner, dancers is colorful dresses and ribbons skipping around between the people and one of them slings a red ribbon around Sehuns neck before giving a wink and then disappearing into the crowd again.  
The black haired knight looks irritated for a long moment, pulling the ribbon away form his neck and Baekhyun laughs, taking it from him and stuffing it into his pocket. For hours they just walk, side by side and sometimes hand in hand, watching mages summon balls of fire and tossing them high into the air where they explode into showers of colorful sparks, the crowd oohing and ahhing around them. They eat and drink and Baekhyun feels a little bit light headed and he doesn't even know why he does it, but suddenly he takes Sehuns hand again and pulls him towards where there is a small stage set up, musicians playing a cheerful melody on pipes and drums and cymbals.  
He pushes Sehun right into the dancing mass in front of the stage, throwing himself at the other, who is so startled that he just catches him with a small yelp and some way or another they end up dancing. Someone pulls Baekhyun along into a circle, teaching him steps and when to clap in time with the music and he laughs when he sees Sehuns broody face from across the circle. Baekhyun is spinning around himself with a girl by his side whose bright blue skirt is brushing against his knees, laughter in his lungs and ears, letting himself get lost between the people that are singing and shouting along to the song and then the formation dissolves and a hand is grabbing his elbow and he knows it's Sehun because the scent of lavender is strong in his nose.  
At first he thinks that Sehun is stopping him from dancing, but he doesn't, just turns Baekhyun around and around himself once before they end up chest to chest, Baekhyuns arms around Sehuns neck and for a moment the world stops because not only Baekhyun is laughing but Sehun too and they are dancing between other pairs, the song getting faster and louder and the drums are beating under Baekhyuns skin.  
He feels like his mind is all over the place, no single thought sticking around long enough to be clear and he is so lost, so lost in this world, in this place, in the person who has his arms secured around his waist and they are moving too fast. He doesn't want this to stop.  
No, Baekhyun doesn't want to go home.  
And this thought is clear enough to him, like a bright fire in his head and it's the reason he reaches up and tangles his fingers in Sehuns hair and pulls him down into a kiss. Sehun doesn't respond, his lips still and sticky with honey against Baekhyuns and then his hands are on either side of Baekhyuns face and tilt his head up a little bit more and Baekhyuns heart lurches in his chest, beating loud in his ears, against his ribcage as Sehun kisses him. Sehuns bottom lip is a little fuller than his upper lip, still tasting like wine and apples against Baekhyuns tongue and their mouths don't fit perfectly like people always write in books and there are no fireworks in his head or butterflies in his belly, but he feels like he is in the most perfect place on earth right now. In Sehuns arms, standing in the middle of a dancing crowd, music too loud and his fingers tangled in black hair that feels way too soft under his fingertips.  
He is lost and he knows it.

 

Maybe they are moving too fast, maybe this should not happen, but Baekhyun wants it. He wants the press of cold fingers under his shirt, ghosting over his skin and teeth tugging on his lower lip, drawing a moan out of him. And he wants the grinding of their bodies against each other, his legs wrapped around Sehuns middle and hips bucking up into the warm hard body that is pressing him down into the mattress.  
He is groaning in the back of his throat when Sehun wedges a hand between their bodies and starts palming his crotch, face buried in the side of Baekhyuns neck and he closes his eyes to feel every single second of it more. He wants to engrave this moment into his memory, wants to become one with the pages of the book, wants to be part of this world and there are tears brimming at the corners of his eyes when Sehun kisses him slowly, dragging his tongue over Baekhyuns and undresses him with trembling hands that are rushing through it all.  
It's too fast and it's wrong and Baekhyun is sure he breaks his own heart, but who the fuck cares anymore?  
He doesn't.

Why should he? Sehun is right there in this moment with him, sucking the air from his lungs and running his palms over the planes of Baekhyuns stomach, down over his hips and over his thighs to wrap them back around his waist, biting and sucking along his skin to mark him up and god, Baekhyun is so in for this. He is in for it because he feels like he belongs right here.  
It's messy and hurried, the way they writhe on the sheets of their too small bed, laughing to themselves when Sehun slips off the mattress while tugging off his own pants and Baekhyun wraps his arms around his neck to draw him back in, running his fingers through his hair while they kiss and Sehun stretches him open on too dry fingers.  
The first burns and Baekhyun mewls, bucking down against the intrusion no matter how loud his body screams for him to get away from it. Sehun is patient for longer than Baekhyun can be, working the finger in and out of his entrance, curling it against his walls and then pulling it back out and Baekhyun growls at him with a glare when the finger is pressed back in with a second one, knuckle deep and painful for too long.  
He should have stolen lube at Jongins place, he thinks faintly, rolling his hips down to get the fingers deeper, moaning brokenly when Sehuns fingertips grace against a spot inside of him that has him throwing his head back into the thin pillow.  
He is far from ready even after the third finger, wonders if he will ever be ready but Sehun is taking his time with kissing his jaw, his neck and sucking bruises into his collarbones before he laves his tongue over Baekhyuns nipples, fingers thrusting into his body and working him open steadily even when Baekhyun starts complaining.  
It only takes so long before he has enough of the teasing, enough of the slow and at the same time frantic pace, so he pushes at Sehuns shoulders and throws him off, climbing into his lap right after and taking Sehuns face between his hands to lock their lips together before he sinks down on him. And lord, it hurts so much there are tears flowing over his cheeks but at the same time it's right and perfect and too good and Sehun is gasping for air against Baekhyuns lips and he would never trade this moment for anything.  
Sehun is struggling to breathe beneath him, mouth open against Baekhyuns and his hands gripping the smaller boys hips so hard he will leave another set of bruises, fingernails nearly breaking skin while he tries to keep Baekhyun still on top of him. But he doesn't want to be still. He wants to move, wants Sehun to fall apart beneath him, for his mask to shatter into a thousand pieces so he can never place it back on and so he rolls his hips with a soft pained noise at the too dry slide. Sehun goes lax under him, hands laying against Baekhyuns thighs and he knows he wins in this second when Sehuns eyes are searching his and he starts moving. He keeps it slow at first, rolling his hips and drawing figure eights on Sehuns lap before he lifts himself up and drops back down, a moan ripping itself free from his throat and he closes his eyes while his head drops back against his neck, hands on Sehuns chest and his pace grows harder and faster until he is bouncing up and down, gyrating his hips fast and then slow again, scratching deep red lines into Sehuns white skin that are surely burning.  
His own voice sounds strange in his ears, breaking around the edges when Sehun starts thrusting up into him, chasing after release and Baekhyun is so close it's like he is hanging off a string above a black abyss and when he tumbles over the edge, Sehuns breath stutters in his lungs, his eyes squeezing shut and Baekhyun knows he is close. He can only hold himself up above the other, taking each deep thrust of Sehun into his body, every snap of hips up into his own and Sehuns chest is marred with bloody indents of his fingernails by the time he stills and a groan leaves him. The sound is so beautiful that Baekhyun is sure he won't ever forget it, his body tipping forward until his forehead is resting against Sehuns and they breathe the same air.  
“Don't-”, Sehun starts and Baekhyun silences him with a kiss. They fall asleep like that, Baekhyun resting on top of Sehun and their legs tangled together between stained sheets, lips just inches apart.  
Don't go.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: It's a super rushed and super sucky ending, I know that. I have finished this story about one or two weeks ago actually, but I don't think I will ever change the ending orz That's why there is always the warning: plot holes, typos and crappy sword fighting!

 

Sehun is gone by the time Baekhyun wakes up, but the door to their room is slightly ajar and he hears his voice. The drums have long gone silent and Baekhyun sinks back into the sheets with a pained groan, his lower body feeling like it is on fire. But he is sated and strangely happy while he listens to Sehun talk to Tao and Yifan just outside the door, their voices hushes and barely audible.  
“Did you get it?”, Tao asks, his slightly scratchy voice louder then the others and Baekhyun imagines him chewing on Yifans earlobe again. The other witcher grumbles something in return and Tao answers: “Oh, hush, you. Don't complain. Be glad I am not setting you on fire again.”  
“I got it.”, Sehun interrupts them and Baekhyun sees a little bit of his shoulder through the crack in the door. “He cried last night.”  
“Wonderful!”, Yifan says, sounding forcefully cheerful and Baekhyun knows that Tao is scratching his neck again, probably because Yifan almost threw him off. “The you have everything you need, right?”  
“Sure.”, Sehun retorts. “It was easy. With his tears I can open the vortex to his world.”  
Wait, what?  
“And then?”, Tao asks softly, a horrible screeching sound following and Yifan is suddenly cursing loudly. “The Nothing is from his world too, right? Do you think...”  
“He will make it.”, Sehun interrupts him briskly. “And if he doesn't, it's none of our business. Chanyeol is on his way here with the Master. Set everything up for tonight.”  
“Yes, sir!”, Tao chirrups and then says: “Move it, Yifan, we don't have all day.”  
“We do.”, Yifan mutters. “You're even more of a pest now that you're a dragon.”  
“Pfffft.”, Tao makes and the door opens. Baekhyun freezes, muscles locking up when he meets Sehuns eyes, the other looking disheveled and tired and the bright red scratch marks on his skin make Baekhyun blush violently, but Sehuns lips curl up around the corners and he kicks the door shut before Tao has the chance to yell: “Good morning, Baekhyun!”  
The door slams closed right in Yifans face and Baekhyun hears the two witchers arguing all the way down the hallway while Sehun makes his way to the bed again and crawls under the blanket next to his body.  
“Good morning.”, he drawls and Baekhyun squeaks: “Hi!” (a little bit too loud if he is being honest with himself and his voice sounds scratchy.)  
Sehun lifts an eyebrow at him, looking like a lazy cat while he stretches himself out on the mattress, studying Baekhyuns face while the other clutches the blanket to his chest, legs drawing up as if to curl himself into a little ball.  
“What's wrong?”, Sehun asks eventually and Baekhyun blurts: “What happened last night! Uh. We have to forget about that, right? I will go home tomorrow and-”  
He breaks off and Sehun blinks a couple of times in quick succession, face twisting into a grimace and Baekhyun hopes that Sehun will take his face between his hands again and tell him that no, he doesn't have to forget because Sehun doesn't want to and everything is alright and he needs to stay- but all Sehun does is shrug and say: “You'll go home tonight.”  
And nothing has ever hurt so much in his entire life.

 

Baekhyun knows he should probably not wander off on his own, but he does so anyways, sighing to himself while he does so. Sehun is busy with the preparations of his so called summoning ritual, not even looking at Baekhyun when he asks him if he is hungry or if they could talk about what will happen- tonight, not tomorrow. He doesn't know why, but the thought of leaving earlier than he expected has his stomach churning and his heart aching. He doesn't want to go, but he can't stay.  
He wanders around the city by himself, lost in thoughts until someone clears his throat to Baekhyuns right and he jumps, head whipping around to see a man standing next to a carriage wagon, naked arms crossed over his chest and head cocked to the side.  
He is a little taller than Baekhyun, black hair wind swept and falling around pointy ears and Baekhyun has seen those green eyes before. That little golden spark inside of them as the mans lips curl up into a smirk.  
“Nice spell you have there.”, the man mumbles and Baekhyun arches an eyebrow.  
“What?”, he gets out and the man cocks his head to the other side, arms flexing while he leans his hip against the carriage.  
“You've been told that before.”, he says and Baekhyun takes a small step backwards, but the man lifts a hand and adds: “I won't harm you, don't be afraid. I'm not like the other Faeries.”  
“You're not?”, Baekhyun asks sceptically and the mans smirk grows wider as he shrugs: “Maybe, maybe not. Where did you get that spell?”  
“I don't have any spells.”, Baekhyun informs him curtly and the Faery scrunches up his nose. “Another Faery stole it.”  
“Spells can not be stolen.”, he Faery shakes his head, a little bemused by Baekhyuns words. “Once you have it, it won't go away. Who told you this nonsense?”  
Baekhyun doesn't answer, just looks at him with an arched eyebrow and the men heaves a sigh, stepping closer and offers him a hand to shake, introducing himself: “I'm Jongdae.”  
“And I won't shake hands with a Faery.”, Baekhyun shoots right back and then bites his bottom lip because, damn, that was rude. But Jongdae doesn't seem to mind, just snickers and his eyes flash a bright golden color. “You have definitely met Faeries in your life.”  
“One.”, Baekhyun tells him shyly and Jongdae lifts one shoulder in what seems to be a half-shrug. “Some of us don't get along well with humans. So. Want to tell me about that spell?”  
And Baekhyun doesn't know how, but he ends up in the carriage with a cup of tea between his trembling hands and Jongdae sitting on a large pillow on the floor of the wagon, nodding kindly in an understanding way that has something slightly patronizing about it.  
“I see, I see.”, he repeats over and over again while Baekhyun has a mental breakdown and keeps blabbering on and on and on. He struggles for breath between words and Jongdae places a hand on his knee to slow him down.  
“Let me tell you something about magic.”, he starts slowly and shuts Baekhyun up with that. The tea is hot on his tongue, camomile a little bit too strong for his liking, but he sips it slowly, eyes wide and maybe even frightened as Jongdae adjusts himself on the pillow so he has his hands on his knees and reminds Baekhyun oddly of Mister Oh. There is a heavy silence them before Jongdae speaks again and when he does he doesn't only look like Mister Oh, he sounds like it too, his voice slow and testing as if Baekhyun is an animal that will bolt any second now, elbows turned out while he presses his knees down into the pillow.   
“That spell you have inside of you can never be stolen. It lives and breathes like a human being maybe. It is connected to your mind, to your soul and the reason why you couldn't step away from this other man you keep mentioning... is that you didn't want to. And maybe he didn't want you to either.”, he tells Baekhyun, eyes flickering back and forth between Baekhyuns and they are glowing so intensely that Baekhyun can't look away. “Magic is not just a thing. It flows in our veins and comes alive with just a thought. Just like this.”  
He snaps his fingers once and holds a small, flickering flame above his thumb before it vanishes into a small puff of smoke.  
“Magic lets you do what ever you want to.”, Jongdae smiles at him when Baekhyun leaves again, heart heavy and head spinning because the sun is already setting and he will go home now. He will go home and he will never see this world again.  
Not the two full moons that are rising, not the Faeries with their glowing eyes, not the beautiful mermaids. Baekhyun is helplessly in love with this world already and he remembers what Jongin told him: You are becoming part of this world.  
He does, doesn't he?

 

Sehun knows.  
He know that the time has come to shine, his time to do what he was born to do, trained to do and raised to do. This is the moment he is fulfilling his destiny, or it feels like it anyways. Sehun always thought that this moment would come with a little bit more of drama, maybe high up on a mountain, or at the edge of a cliff with the ocean thundering against stone, the sky dark and heavy with rain above his head.  
It's nothing like that and if it weren't for the fact that this is a moment that will decide over the fate of a thousand of people including himself, he would appreciate the beauty of it. Yifan and Tao did a good job and Sehun thinks- a little pleased with himself- that he did the right thing when he hired the two witchers. Just outside the city walls there is now a circle of candles where the vortex will open, the flames flickering with a soft breeze, the circle glowing with the light of the stones that are placed in its middle. There aren't many, just three of them and Sehun heaves a small sigh because there should be four and he messed up, but hey, better three than nothing.  
The Master won't be pleased with him though.  
And a long time ago that thought would have scared him. He is stronger now though. He is an adult now, Sehun tells himself while rolling the red orb he stole in Ivory back and forth between his palms, chewing on his bottom lip while Yifan bends down to empty the contents of a small flask over the third stone- just an ordinary stone they picked up in the fields around them. But under Yifans fingers and the muttered summoning the witcher recites, the stone comes to life with the small drops of salty tears Sehun gathered the night before.  
A pure heart is the key, he remembers the Masters words and he doesn't even flinch when he feels Chanyeol brushing against his leg.  
“Hello.”, the cat greets Baekhyun, who is sitting next to Sehun on the ground, legs folded under his body and nervously fiddling with the hem of his shirt.  
“Hello.”, Baekhyun echoes, but his voice is faint and Chanyeol just presses himself to the boys side with a purr that vibrates all through is body. “He will be here.”, the Cheshire says then and Sehun gives a curt nod, eyes still trained on Yifan and Tao, who are just done with the preparations and are about to leave.  
They don't want to be here when it all comes to an end and Sehun can't really blame them.  
He wouldn't want to be here if he had a choice either. But Sehun never really had a choice.  
“What happens now?”, Baekhyun whispers into Chanyeols ear and the Cheshire nudges the side of his face with his snout, licking his cheek affectionately. “You are going home.”  
“But how?”, Baekhyun asks and Chanyeol flicks his tail against his ear, making him laugh silently. “Sehun will send you home, don't worry about it.”  
Sehun listens to them with a stoic face, his heart thundering inside his chest because he knows that after Baekhyun is gone, everything will just crash around him. He never had any magic and yet he is able to open the portal, summon the vortex and pull the Nothing out.  
Why, he asks himself, doesn't he want that though?  
It's been his purpose in life for years now and his plan needs to be completed.  
“Sehun.”, Baekhyun suddenly calls his name softly and he nearly jumps our of his skin, hands tightening where he has them tucked under his arms. He turns his head to face Baekhyun, surprised to see the boy standing, fingers combing through his hair and he asks: “Yes?”  
“Can we talk?”, Baekhyun blurts out and Sehun shakes his head. “We don't have time for that.”  
“But-”, Baekhyun starts and Sehun lifts a hand to stop him, pointing to where one of the two moons is almost completely hidden behind a shadow. “I need to start.”  
And Baekhyun looks utterly disappointed, face falling and shoulders slumping, but he doesn't say anything else, just looks at Sehun and Sehuns meets his eyes before he looks away and steps into the circle of candles, cracking the stones open one after one.  
With each shattering sound of glass, the candles flicker brighter, the potions inside the stones vanishing into the earth and making it glow even more before the edges of the circle start to blur and grow pitch black.  
This is what a black hole must look like, Baekhyun thinks to himself while he watches the candles go out one after one and Sehun finally steps back out of the circle as the ground starts shaking under their feet. The taller offers him a hand, but Baekhyun doesn't move, presses his lips into a thin line and crosses his arms over his chest.  
“Come on.”, Sehun urges him while the circle behind him becomes so dark it's like it's sucking away the light around them. “You need to go home.”  
“I don't want to!”, Baekhyun snaps and Sehun drops his hand, looking taken aback, but Baekhyun doesn't give him the chance to finish talking, his voice growing loud and desperate until he is almost yelling. “I don't want to go! I want to stay here! Can't you stop this stupid ritual and just- not destroy the world please?”  
Sehun stares at him silently, taking yet another step closer and slowly reaches out, taking his face between his hands and presses their lips together in a soft but firm kiss that has Baekhyuns eyes slipping shut. It's only when he feels Sehuns arms around his waist and his feet lifting off the ground that he opens his eyes again and Sehun breaks the kiss.  
“I won't.”, Sehun breathes against his mouth and then he- just throws him.  
Baekhyun yelps, eyes fixed on Sehuns face, seeing the corners of his lips slowly curling up into a knowing smile and Baekhyun wants to kick him in the balls. But then he falls and blackness swallows his body like water would, the dark crashing around his body and enveloping him so fast he can't even say anything, can't even scream.

 

It's just like last time. He doesn't feel it, only feels when his body connects with something hard and he hears a crashing sound and he is dry heaving into his hands when he rolls onto his side and curls around himself. The familiar smell of books and dust greets him, the faintest hint of ink and lavender that clings to his own skin as he presses his hands to his face.  
“Jesus Christ!”, he hears Mister Ohs voice from above. “Baekhyun!”  
“No!”, Baekhyun wheezes, his face still hidden behind his hands. “Don't- I- I didn't want to-”  
Mister Oh is by his side in the blink of an eye, hands on Baekhyuns shoulder and he wants to struggle against the iron hold the old man has on him to turn him around. But he feels numb, his body cold and shivering and he doesn't know why.  
It wasn't like this the last time he fell through the worlds.  
“You're back.”, Mister Oh tells him, almost soothingly as if Baekhyun is upset because he was gone for so long when in reality all he wants to do is go back and kick Sehun so hard in the shin that he will feel the pain for days. “You're back, Baekhyun. Everything is alright. You're save now.”  
Was he ever in danger?  
Baekhyun drops his hands, eyes brimming with tears and he meets Mister Ohs gaze, the familiar wrinkly face still the same as it was a few days ago, but suddenly Baekhyun doesn't feel like Mister Oh is his friend anymore. Not when there are a thousand questions in his head.  
“You're back.”, the old man repeats and Baekhyun grits his teeth.  
“I didn't want to come back.”, he spits out and Mister Oh arches an eyebrow in an all too well-known way. “I wanted to stay there. I didn't want to come back!”  
And Mister Oh is silent while he looks at him and Baekhyun knows that silence, knows that look and the way the mans bottom lip thins against his upper one while he regards Baekhyun with a stern look. He knows it because Sehun always looks at him like that.  
“You couldn't stay there.”, Mister Oh says and stands up from the floor, pulling Baekhyun with him and sighing when he sees the mess the boy made when he fell into a stack of books that are now scattered all over the slightly dusty floor of the store.  
He pats down Baekhyuns jeans, rightens his shirt and then ruffles his hair with a fatherly smile. Baekhyun just stares at him with his mouth slightly open. He doesn't even question why he is wearing his own clothes again, the weight of his phone familiar in his pocket.  
Maybe all of this didn't even happen?  
What if Baekhyun really fell down the stairs and is still in hospital with his skull split open and all of this is just a weird dream and in the end he didn't even go to another world and met Sehun. What if he is just imagining all of this?  
Mister Oh turns away from him, muttering something about getting Baekhyun a cup of tea to calm him down and warm him up and Baekhyun stands there between the shelves- historical and science fiction novels- and pulls out his phone.  
The battery is low, the small bar already read and a warning flashes across the screen to find a power plug because the battery is almost dead. But Baekhyun unlocks his phone, swipes his thumb across the screen a couple of times until he finds the pictures folder and opens it.  
There, right at the top is a blurry picture of Chanyeol he took the other night by the fire, right below it is the one he took of Sehun and- they are real. They are real even though the pictures are strangely blurry and the colors aren't right because it looks like Baekhyun took the shots against the sun- light flares around the edges and a strange purple hue to all of them.  
Here they are, all of them.  
And when Baekhyun reaches into his back pocket, he finds the toothbrush Jongin gave to him.  
It's light in his hand and while Baekhyun looks at it, it's like his heart is sinking inside of his chest. This is real. It wasn't a dream and Baekhyun holds the prove in his hand.  
A toothbrush.  
Mister Oh returns from the backroom, a steaming cup of tea in his hand and Baekhyun smiles faintly when he notices that it's the reindeer cup he brought the old man last Christmas. He still stands there, books around his feet, the toothbrush clutched between his fingers and and then says loudly: “Sehun.”  
Mister Oh freezes by the counter, the cup nearly slipping from his hand and then looks at him over the edge of his glasses, eyes bright and so much younger than they should be. But then this little light inside of them fades away and the bookstore owner heaves a sigh.  
“Yes, Sehun.”  
“Why didn't you tell me?”, Baekhyun asks, the puzzle pieces inside his head slowly slipping into place- or so he thinks. “Why didn't you tell me that you have been waiting for me?”  
“Excuse me?” Mister Oh looks amused for a second and the expression on his face is familiar too. He looks so much like Sehun in this moment that Baekhyun wants to laugh and cry at the same time.  
“You are Sehun.”, he says then slowly and Mister Oh makes a chocking sound. “You are Sehun, right? He isn't your son, you are him yourself. That's why you didn't want me to touch the book and to come home, right?”  
“Baekhyun.”, Mister Oh calls his name sternly and Baekhyun shuts himself up, the toothbrush hard between his fingers when he grips it a little tighter. “You're wrong.”  
“I'm not!”, Baekhyun almost screams. “I'm not wrong! This world inside that book is real and Chanyeol and Sehun and all those others are real! I was there! I saw it! Why didn't you- why is this- I-”  
“Baekhyun.”, Mister Oh says again and sets the cup down on the counter. He takes as slow breath and pushes his glasses up on his nose and then mutters: “You're wrong. Sehun is my son, nothing more, nothing less.”  
The information isn't really all that new to Baekhyun. Mister Oh told him about his son, told him that he died a few years ago. But Mister Oh is here and Sehun is there and- the old man left him. Baekhyun feels like someone slapped him across the face, like someone poured a bucket of ice cubes over his head. Sehuns father isn't dead, he is here in Baekhyuns world. But why leave him? Why leave a son you never even knew and write a book about his life?  
Why all of this?  
Sehun grew up without a father in this world, was sold to a brotherhood of murderers and mages. If Mister Oh is his father, why did he leave him? He must have known all this, right?  
“And with his last dying breath, the Knight swore to always watch over his unborn son so the brotherhood could never resurrect the Nothing.”  
Sehun doesn't have magic. No, wrong, he has his own kind of magic. Jongin said so.  
Everything is spinning around him, the toothbrush clattering to the floor and Baekhyun wishes he could sit down. It's too much.  
They look at each other for a long minute, the clock above the counter ticking loudly and then Baekhyun whispers: “You are the Knight.”  
Mister Oh nods once, the movement slow and well considered and Baekhyun feels like someone slapped him. Everything slips into place inside his head and he continues: “You are the Knight and you are Sehuns father.”  
Again Mister Oh nods, suddenly looking old and thin and worn and Baekhyun takes a step forward, hands slamming down on the counter so hard the tea inside the cup swishes. “You left him there! Get him out of this book!”  
“I can't.”, Mister Oh mutters and Baekhyun pauses. For the first time since he knows the old man, he really looks old. His shoulders are slumping, there are dark circles under his eyes and he doesn't meet Baekhyuns eyes for even a second. He just looks old and tired- nothing like the man Baekhyun knows.   
“It's destiny, Baekhyun.”, he goes on then, looking down at his hands. “Inside this book he will stay alive. He can never cross the lines between there and here or he will die. It has been foretold to me even before he was born. He will die and he dies over and over again and all I can do is keep him alive inside this book where the story repeats itself.”  
“What?”, Baekhyun gets out through a clogged throat. “What are you talking about? He isn't drying. He is about to destroy the world! He thinks the Knight killed his father and he is about to summon this Nothing shit or what ever and-”  
“He knows who his father is.”, Mister Oh interrupts him, sounding angry. He straightens when Baekhyuns mouth falls open around a small startled sound and reaches underneath the counter to slam the book down on the wood in front of Baekhyun, pointing a thin finger at it.  
“Read it.”  
“Why?”, Baekhyun asks, suddenly defiant. “Why should I?”  
“Just read it.”, Mister Oh instructs him softly. “You will understand.”  
Baekhyun doesn't even want to understand. He wants to go back.  
He wants to go back and stop Sehun from doing something stupid and then probably live a life happily ever after or some cliché shit like that. And still he opens the book and Mister Oh reaches out to flip through the pages until they are at the end of the story, pointing a finger at a line of words that slowly starts to swim away on the paper, words blurring into a new sentence while Baekhyun reads.

“With Baekhyun gone, there was nothing left to do for him but this. Sehun has been waiting for this moment his entire life, ever since he saw the crest of his family that was dangling from his neck in one of the history books he was forced the read, the sign of his bloodline. It was his heritage. The blood of a hero that was a murderer and nothing more, the only thing that can open the passage for a being that can never be controlled. Baekhyun didn't need to see this and even though his heart was aching, Sehun was glad that he was gone now. This was no place for someone who didn't even know that Faeries were not to trust. Sehun wanted to smile, his lips already twitching, but the Master was right there beside him, his bony hand closed tight around Sehuns elbow to hold his hand in place above the vortex. A swirling nothing of black, a thunderstorm that was rolling above the world to swallow everything in it's wake. Something to rip this world from it's hinges and create a new one after the Masters visions. Everything for the Master. But Sehun has been waiting for this moment his entire life. This was what he was born for, what the Shadow Cheshires foretold for him.  
Son of the Knight, the only thing that was able to summon the Nothing. Or stop it.  
Baekhyun was gone, he repeated in his mind again, looking over to where Chanyeol was sitting, claws flexing and then he nodded. Everything was happened too fast in this moment. The vortex opened wider, the earth under their feet crumbling away and the Master still muttering the summoning verses under his breath and then Chanyeol was at him. Claws ripped through flesh, into bones and skin, the weight of the Cheshire throwing the Master backwards and Sehun toppled over himself with the momentum of the impact.  
A scream tore itself free from the Masters throat, a horrible screeching sound that had nothing human anymore. He had kept himself alive for too long, the magic eating away on his humanity and turning him into a horrible creature himself. The Master despised all those creatures and now, with his hood slipping down over his bald head, he was looking like one of them himself.  
“Traitor!”, the old man screamed while Chanyeol tried to snap at his face. But the Master was the Master for a reason and years of using potions and magic had given him powers a Cheshire could not fight. The cat made a wheezing noise when a dagger sliced into his side, a yelp leaving him and he hopped away before Sehun had the chance to lunge for his sword that was laying on the ground next to his saddle bags. The Master was at him right away, throwing him backwards and away from the weapon, his back hitting the floor and the air left his lungs.  
“This is how you thank me?”, the Master asked, blood running down his neck where Chanyeols claws had bitten into his skin and ripped it open. But he was unfazed by it and Sehun knew that they needed more than that to kill this monster. “This is how you thank me for raising you, you brat?”  
“You raised me for your own purposes.”, Sehun answered him, his voice surprisingly steady. “For nothing else.”  
“Finish this ritual and I will give you your life.”  
“No.”, Sehun growled and rolled himself around onto his stomach when the Master threw himself at him, sword drawn and aimed for his head. The fight would be short like this, Sehun thought while dodging another blow to his side, jumping to his feet and then diving for his sword, barely catching himself and rolling to his feet again, sword in hand, scabbard thrown to the side.  
So they stood there, the Master and the apprentice like Sehun always knew it would be.  
This was his destiny after all. Stopping this once and for all and if it would be his death.  
Chanyeol was injured, scrambling away from between them on weak, trembling legs while the Master and Sehun started their deathly dance of blades by the edge of the vortex. The ground was still shaking under their feet, earth crumbling away around the edges of the black hole slowly spreading wider and wider while they fought.  
But an appreciate can never defeat their teacher.  
It was clear that Sehun couldn't win this fight, sweat running down his face and making his vision blurry, arms and legs trembling with exhaustion and still the old man was still standing, laughing straight at his face. His sword drew a silver circle so quickly, Sehun couldn't even react, his own sword coming up too slow and knocked from his hand.  
The Master emitted a victory cry, dashing forward and Sehun knew this was the end of it. The dagger on the back of his belt was out of reach for him, hands coming together around a blade that was piercing his flesh, sinking deeper into his belly with each breath he took while the Master bared his teeth at him, grinning madly while he whispered: “I only need you and your beating heart, boy. Not your mind and approval.”  
Sehun was screaming in pain, the sword in his stomach like a leash for the Master to guide him towards the circle of darkness, pushing him back until his feet were almost slipping inside.  
“Just your beating heart.”, he repeated and Sehun knew what had to be done.   
Maybe he had always known it. But Baekhyun had made him forget about that.  
“My beating heart, huh?”, he said, voice trembling and etched with pain. “No beating heart for you then, old man.”  
His fingers were bloody and cut where he had clutched the Masters sword, deep gashes in his palms, slippery and wet with his own blood instead of the mans he had wanted to kill, but he managed to rip the dagger from the back of his belt, holding the Masters eye who was still grinning at him and then the grin faded away.  
The dagger bit deep into his flesh, cutting through muscles and then bones and Sehun choked on blood and air, eyes brimming with tears and the dagger came to a stop. No beating heart for the Master and the Nothing. Not Sehuns heart. It had stopped beating.

 

Baekhyun scream is so loud, Mister Oh winces, the cup toppling over between them.  
“No!”, Baekhyun yells, staring at the man across from him with angry eyes. “No! Change that! He can't die! This is supposed to be a happy end!”  
“It is?”, Mister Oh questions lightly and attempts to take the book from Baekhyuns hold, but he wretches it away, fingers curling into pages and nearly ripping them out. “Baekhyun, this story was never meant to be read.”, Mister Oh tells him slowly as if he is talking to a child and explains to him that their dog is dead but they are allowed to keep it.  
“Alraun is safe and the story will repeat itself again. Sehun is alive.”  
“He dies!”, Baekhyun screams, slamming a hand down on the book. “What kind of father lets their son die like this?! You wrote this! You can change it!”   
Mister Oh shakes his head and sets the cup straight on the counter, tea spreading towards the cash register. “I can't. I wrote it with ink made of dragon blood and Iron Moon and I didn't chose this ending. I only wrote what the book told me.”  
“Bullshit!”, Baekhyun barks and Mister Oh reaches out for the book again while Baekhyun seethes: “Fuck you and your magic! Fuck dragon blood and what ever bullshit you used, you are going to change it!”  
“I won't.”, Mister Oh says resolutely and Baekhyun curls his fingers tighter into the pages while Mister Oh pulls the book away. The sound of paper ripping is loud and Baekhyun grins triumphantly, but Mister Oh just shakes his head and Baekhyun looks down at the pages in his hands. They are empty. And where the pages should be ripped out there are new ones, perfectly fine and not stained by his tears while he balls the papers in his hand, tasting acid on his tongue.  
“This is the way it has to be, Baekhyun.”, he hears Mister Oh say. “Sehuns destiny is fulfilled and the only way for me to keep him alive is with this book. With the never ending circle of this story. You were never supposed to be there in the first place. Now. Let's wash your hands.”  
There is ink on his skin, Baekhyun notices. Black against the white of his palms.  
And Mister Oh won't save Sehun while Baekhyun stands there and cries.  
Because he loves him.  
“There is no hero in this story, Baekhyun.”

 

Byun Baekhyun doesn't know a lot of things.  
He doesn't know how to get toothpaste stains off a mirror, doesn't know how to tie his shoelaces without them coming undone in an hour or two and he doesn't know a single thing about magic. But he knows that he is in love with a man called Sehun that lives inside a book and he knows that he can't let him die. Not when he knows that he can change it.  
He knows that he will probably get himself into trouble again, but he doesn't care.  
Did he ever?

And so he slaps the book out of Mister Ohs hold, bending down quickly to pick it up from the floor and makes a run for it. The old man is shouting after him, cursing him, begging him to come back, but Baekhyun doesn't listen.  
Sehun can't die.  
Not when Baekhyun loves him and not when Sehun is the only thing that was ever close to home for him. The store isn't big and the front door is locked and Mister Oh wants him to sit and watch as Sehun dies over and over again in this damned book the old man wrote himself.  
What for?  
It's the only way to keep him alive, the old man said and Baekhyun doesn't believe that.  
If he knows one thing about magic, it's that nothing is as it seems. Mermaids are weird, Faeries are paid with years and mages trip over their robes. People get sucked into books and villains aren't ugly. Nothing is as it seems. So he shoves a hand into his pocket, pulls out the little rest of a pen he carries around with him all the time and drops to his knees in the small toilet, Mister Oh banging his fist against the wooden door, still begging him to come out and let it be.  
Baekhyun can't. He can't stop now. He has to try. The pages are still empty where he ripped them out of the book, the edges rigged and uneven and they are crumbled and stained with dirt. But Baekhyun knows that he has found a way to change fate.  
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and stabs the pen into his hand, the tip sinking into his skin. There is a little bit of blood dripping out of the hole he just stabbed into his own palm, red mixed with ink that won't ever wash away.  
The pen makes a horrible scratching sound across the page when Baekhyun begins to write, the ink and blood leaving strange colors across the paper and Baekhyun has to stab the pen back into his palms over and over again until he has written three sentences.  
He isn't an author, isn't a writer, but that doesn't matter.  
Not when he remembers Chanyeols grin that is so full of teeth and Sehuns bright laughter he only heard once. Not when he still smells lavender and tastes apples and wine on his tongue. His palms are bloody and they burn and the pages are smeared with his blood and his tears and with magical ink that sinks into the paper and vanishes, only to surface again and the words build sentences, build paragraphs and then Baekhyun drops the pen. He clutches the book between his bloody hands, lifts it up and reads out loud:  
“Sehun knows he can win this fight. He knows it because the Master is nothing but an old man and he is a master of the sword himself and he has Chanyeol by his side. He knows he can win because he is not alone and there is someone counting on him to stay alive. And the vortex opens again and even though Sehun is on his back, has a blade right at his throat, he won't give up. Not when Baekhyun is coming back.”  
He feels the tug behind his navel while he reads, feels the familiar burning in his fingers when the book begins to vibrate in his hold, the ink swimming away with each sentence he reads and Baekhyuns voice grows louder and louder until he can't even hear Mister Oh screaming his name outside of the toilet, the pounding of hands against the door fading away.  
“Baekhyun is coming back.”, he says finally and then the book drops from his hold and he feels like the ground opens under his body. The tiles under his knees fade to black and Baekhyun is falling. Wind whips around his body, his hair falls into his eyes and he closes his eyes and braces himself for impact.  
But this time the fall is different.  
He is falling through a sea of stars, into a void and through the worlds, a sky rushing past him and Baekhyun fears for a moment that he will die. He isn't a mage after all. But then there is a giant moon, a second one glowing bright behind clouds and then the thunderstorm swallows him and spits him out again and this time Baekhyun isn't falling into a Fairy Grove but into a battlefield.  
He doesn't fall face first but on his back and he doesn't know if he will survive the crash, but he lands on something warm and furry and groaning and he knows it's Chanyeol. Baekhyun whips himself around so he is laying on his stomach, sprawled out across the Cheshire, eyes instantly finding Sehun and Sehun is looking back as always. The Masters sword is buried to the hilt in his shoulder and Baekhyun knows he is screaming at the top of his lungs, but Sehun smiles at him- this strange knowing smile he gave him before he shoved him right into the vortex and then Baekhyun sees the tip of Sehuns own sword breaking free from the Masters back.  
It's a violent, bloody scene before him but he isn't scared.  
The Master falls slowly as Baekhyun scrambles to his feet, slipping and tripping over himself while Chanyeol groans behind him, still disoriented and wounded from the battle because Baekhyun can't change things like he wishes he could. Sehun sways on his feet, sword dropping from his fingers and clattering against the ground next to the Masters lifeless body and Baekhyun is in his arms in a second. Sehun hisses at him, flinching away when Baekhyun grabs the sword that is still buried in his shoulder with both his hands and Sehun gives him that look again. They trust each other. But he settles a hand over Baekhyuns, stopping him from pulling that sword out and wraps his other hand around the back of Baekhyuns neck without a single word. Baekhyun leans forward all too willingly, connecting their lips in a hard kiss and Sehun whispers against his mouth: “You came back.”  
Of course he came back, Baekhyun wants to say, but he only smiles and Sehun knows.  
Baekhyun can't change the world and he is no hero, but he knows that this is where he belongs.

 

The disappearance of Byun Baekhyun.  
It's a mystery, something that people talk about on the school yard and in the classrooms and in the bars. Some whisper that maybe Baekhyun finally made a run for it, escaping his no-good life and leaving behind his family to try his luck in the bigger cities. Some say that maybe his father beat him to death and nobody knows. It becomes somewhat of their own urban legend, this disappearance of Byun Baekhyun.  
Silly, Kyungsoo tells himself. All of them are stupid. Byun Baekhyun didn't die, he ran away like people say. But he doesn't know where he went. Kyungsoo didn't know Baekhyun all that well, had passed him in the hallways once or twice when they still had been in high school together. Kyungsoo made it to College and Baekhyun disappeared. That's how life goes sometimes, right? And even though Kyungsoo didn't know Baekhyun, he always thought that the other boy would never make it out of their small city, would never make it further than down the road behind the cash register of the 24/7 convenience store.  
Because Byun Baekhyun had a cruel fate. Bad grades, the bad habit of getting into trouble with the bullies of their school and a family out of a drama. Kyungsoo knows Baekhyuns mother though and she keeps telling him that he never came home one day after school when he meets her at the check out of said convenience store. Their own little urban legend.  
And Kyungsoo is curious by nature and something about this makes him antsy.  
Maybe it's because he kind of liked Baekhyun back then, always smiling at each other when they walked past each other in school, sometimes walking in silence along side each other on their way home. Or maybe it is because he pitied him back then.  
And maybe, just maybe, it's because Kyungsoo lost his wallet and never found it again although he was pretty sure he just left it on his desk before it vanished. The loss of a wallet is nothing unusual, really- especially not when you are a student and you have the habit of losing your stuff because you are so stressed and sleep deprived that you hardly ever find your keys and sometimes you fear that you will lose your own head. What is unusual though, is coming home and finding a book on your desk in the exact same spot you left your wallet not even two days after you lost it. Kyungsoo is pretty sure he didn't buy that book, but he stuffs it into his shelf and leaves for class that day.  
That was almost one year ago and people slowly forget about Byun Baekhyun.  
Kyungsoo never forgot about him, no.  
So when he finally moves out of his parents house to get his own place a little bit closer to campus he finds that book again, tucked away on the corner of his shelf and he pauses, book in hand. The book has no title, the binding is made of wood and it's heavy in his palm.  
Kyungsoo flips it open this time, reading the first sentence and then shrugging his shoulders before he makes to toss it into the cardboard box he packs all his books into, only to pause again when a small piece of paper falls to his mattress.  
“Now and Then”, he reads out loud and picks it up slowly. It's the address of a bookstore, written hastily with red and black ink, nothing more. But when Kyungsoo turns the card around there is something else written on the back and he whispers: “He didn't believe in magic, but Jongin would teach him about that. As soon as he arrived.”  
Kyungsoos mouth closes again, his throat suddenly feeling dry and and tight and he struggles to breathe, instinctively reaching for his back pocket and his inhaler, but he can't move.  
His muscles are refusing their service to him, his fingers tightening on the small piece of paper he still holds and then he feels like someone punches him in the face. He falls backwards, fingertips burning and itching where they are connected to the paper and then he tumbles backwards- he will land on the box with his movies, he thinks faintly- and then he crashes to the floor, sprawled out on his back, the air pressed from his lungs.  
“Oh my!”, he hears someone say loudly and he is about to curse at his brother and tell him to knock for fucks sake, when a face appears above him. An unfamiliar face. An unfamiliar gorgeous face. Full lips stretch into a smile and a hand reaches out for him, fingers curling around Kyungsoos and the stranger says: “Hello there. Nice to meet you. I'm Jongin. You took your time, huh?”


End file.
